Out of Place
by someblessedmonster
Summary: When a spell goes awry and lands Buffy, Xander, Willow and Spike in Middle Earth, it'll take the best of both worlds to get them back before they're gone for good. [Buffy season 5 X LOTR]
1. Prologue & The Spell

* * *

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).  
  
Also, the Prologue ends where "----------------"appears. It is the exact point where the actual LOTR and Buffy stories end and mine begins – the beginning of Chapter One. It didn't seem fit to cram a title in there. 

**Prologue & The Spell:**

**Rivendell: October 24**

"Packed already?" Frodo Baggins asked, approaching his friend Samwise Gamgee. Sam was kneeling down at their leather bags that sat against a short wall overlooking a stunning view of waterfalls and cottages while golden light rested upon them.  
  
Sam stood up as Frodo approached him and glared down at the bags, "No harm in being prepared."  
  
"I thought you wanted to see the Elves, Sam," Frodo replied.  
  
"I do."  
  
"More than anything," he added.  
  
"I did," Sam weakly answered. "It's just... we did what Gandalf wanted, didn't we? We got the ring this far to Rivendell. And I thought... seeing as how you're on the mend, we'd be off soon." He added with a sigh, "Off home."  
  
Frodo glanced up at the waterfalls with his back to Sam as he remembered his beautiful and peaceful home where he could forget the nightmares he'd faced at Bree and on Weathertop where he was stabbed. His shoulder still stung with pain now and then.  
  
"You're right, Sam," Frodo softly answered as he turned to his best friend. "We did what we set out to do." Frodo pulled the golden Ring from his pocket as the two hobbits stared down at it. "The Ring will be safe in Rivendell," Frodo declared with a small exhale.

**  
Sunnydale, California: October 24**

"Someone put a spell on my mom," Buffy Summers announced with worry as she sat at the reference table in the newly-opened Magic Box, of which her best friend's girlfriend, Anya, and her watcher, Rupert Giles were the owners of. "Something to make it seem like she's sick."  
  
Her best friend, Xander Harris, stood before her and glared at her with shock. His black, curly hair fell into his eyes as he turned away and thought about how Buffy's mother, Joyce Summers, had collapsed into unconsciousness just a few weeks before. "That's a new kind of nasty," he declared, disgusted. "Any suspects?"  
  
"Well," Buffy declared with a sigh as she pushed her blonde hair back, "I've got the list of suspects narrowed down to just under infinity."  
  
Also in the magic store, Willow Rosenberg, Buffy and Xander's other best friend, walked up to Anya, Xander's girlfriend, and held up a poorly-wrapped hourglass with pieces of crumpled wrapping paper and scotch tape hanging wildly off of it. "Does this look right to you?" Willow asked, exasperated.  
  
"Sure," Anya blankly stared at her, and then matter-of-factly answered, "if you wrapped it with your feet." Anya took the hourglass out of Willow's hands and began to wrap the product herself as Willow rolled her eyes and looked away.  
  
"You know, Buffy," Anya declared as she diligently wrapped the hourglass, "there used to be this French sorcerer back in the sixteenth I-don't-know-what named—"  
  
"Cloutier?" Giles answered, as he approached them. The British man in his late forties stood nearby and listened to the late teenage to early twenty-year-olds that had become his family in the past five years.  
  
"So cute in his little knickers," Anya, the ex-vengeance demon over 1000 years old answered with a nod. "But he had this one spell demons just hated called tirer la couture."  
  
"'Rotate many foodstuffs'?" Buffy asked, relying on her not-so-reliable French translation skills.  
  
"'Pull the curtain back,'" Willow translated perfectly, being the one not asleep in her high school French class.  
  
"A spell to see spells," Anya added. "Well, a trance to see spells, actually, but you get the idea. Try that."  
  
"What do you mean 'see spells'?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Well, all spells leave a trace signature," Giles explained, cleaning his glasses. "It's just not perceptible to the human eye. In this case, it could be the image of a hand choking your mother."  
  
"Or a cloud of mist around her," Anya remarked.  
  
"Or maybe the shape of the demon that's performing the spell?" Willow asked.  
  
Giles nodded, "Possible, yes." Anya held up the perfectly Martha Stewart-wrapped hourglass for all to see as she glowed with a proud smile. Willow sighed.  
  
"Okay," Buffy said with resolve, "so I'll do what this Monsieur Silky Knickers did. I'll go home, I'll get trance-y, and I'll see what's affecting my mom."  
  
"I don't know, Buffy," Willow shook her head with concern. "Trances?"  
  
"Yes, Buffy, the Sorcerer Cloutier was legendary," Giles agreed. "His skills at achieving higher states of consciousness were—"  
  
"Better than mine?" Buffy finished. When he didn't answer, she turned to Willow. "I knew he was gonna say that. But I've been practicing on my concentration skills. I know I'm close."  
  
Giles glared at her gravely, "Are you ready?"  
  
"It's my mom," Buffy declared seriously. "I'll get ready."

**Rivendell**

Aragorn looked up from his book and glanced up at Boromir, son of the Steward of Gondor, as he entered the dimmed room. He walked over to the magnificent painting of the great Isildur as he raised his broken sword towards the Dark Lord Sauron. Boromir's blue eyes were fixed on the painting, as he then turned away and walked towards a grand statue behind him.  
  
In the hands of the statue rested the sacred shards of a once-glorious sword. "The shards of Narsil," Boromir breathed, taken by the glory of the artifact before him. He picked up the leather-wrapped handle of Narsil, the broken blade making the sword appear no longer than a dagger. Boromir brandished it nevertheless as he glared at the broken sword, "The blade that cut the Ring from Sauron's hand."  
  
Boromir ran his fingers along the blade and accidentally sliced the end of his finger, drawing blood. "It's still sharp," he said in surprise. Boromir's blue eyes traveled across the room into Aragorn's eyes as the Ranger stared at him, silent and unmoving. Boromir tossed the handle aside with haste and disappointment, "But no more than a broken heirloom."  
  
Boromir spun on his heel and stomped out of the room, leaving Aragorn to his own seclusion once again. Aragorn glared down at the handle of Narsil as it clanked on the stone floor. The Ranger came to a stand and picked up the handle, staring at it for a few moments as the blade brought the memories of his history and the visions of his destiny to him at once. _Destiny._  
  
He put the blade down in its place in the hands of the statue before him and stepped away from it.

**Sunnydale, California**

Buffy sat cross-legged on the floor in her bedroom, surrounded by a circle of sand and lighted incense as the sunlight poured in through her window. In complete silence, she sat still in the circle with her back straight as she placed her hands on her knees and closed her eyes. She felt a complete calm run through her mind – through her veins even as she forgot about everything.  
  
Her annoying brat sister, her rejected boyfriend, the obnoxious vampire following her around, her friends... her watcher... her poor, poor mother...  
  
Loud bangs rang out through the room as Buffy ripped her eyes open in frustration. On the other side of her door, she could the voice of her little sister, Dawn. "What are you doing?" Dawn called out nosily.  
  
"My boyfriend!" Buffy shot back quickly in annoyance. "Go away."  
  
"Liar," Dawn declared. "Are you doing magic?"  
  
"No, I'm not!" Buffy shouted.  
  
"Can I watch?" Dawn asked, standing at Buffy's door in the hallway.  
  
"No," Buffy sighed, "you can't."  
  
"Oh, come on," Dawn whined... again. "Please! Please! Like times ten and cubed? Please?" Dawn glared down at the doorknob and began to twist it as her sister hastily shoved the door closed again, slamming it in her face. "Yeah, well, I can smell your stinky incense down the hall, you know! And your clothes are gonna reek! And if you're doing magic, I am so telling!"  
  
"Fine!" Buffy shouted as she shoved a towel in the crack underneath her bedroom door. "Fine! Go tell! Go do whatever you want! Just go!"  
  
On the other side of the door, Dawn stepped back, feeling rejected once again and turned away from her big sister's door.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
With a sigh, she walked down the stairs into her living room just as Spike ripped open the front door to the foyer and rushed inside, carrying a blanket over his head as smoke retreated from beneath his black leather duster.  
  
"Spike?" Dawn declared as the vampire took the blanket off of his head, revealing his platinum-blonde, slicked-back hair.  
  
"Bit," Spike nodded and declared in his Cockney accent, glaring around the empty foyer. No one else seemed to be there. "Your sister's not around, is she?"  
  
"Yeah," Dawn answered in confusion. "She's upstairs doing some stupid spell or something. She never lets me in on—"  
  
"Bloody shame," Spike cut her off, not really interested. He anxiously walked away from her, pacing through the dining area and into the kitchen as Dawn followed.  
  
"Why are you here?" Dawn asked. "I'm guessing you weren't out for a daylight jog..." She thought to herself, then asked excitedly, "Ooh, is it something evil?" Spike glared at her strangely as she continued, "Is some big nasty on its way? Do we need to assemble the troops?"  
  
"We?" Spike repeated as he reached into the Summers' refrigerator and rummaged around.  
  
"Yeah," Dawn answered, "us...? The Scoobies?"  
  
"First of all," Spike straightened up, finally having found a Heinekens, "I'm not part of the damn... Scooby group. Second of all, if I did have news, you're not the one I'd be telling it to."  
  
"Why not?" Dawn asked in a whiny voice.  
  
"No offense, nibblet," Spike glared at her with a curled brow. "You're not exactly _in_ the Justice League." He rolled his eyes and popped open the bottle of beer, "Not anymore than I am at least." Dawn sighed in annoyance as she leaned against the kitchen table. The front door opened abruptly as Willow and Xander rushed in.  
  
"Buffy!" Willow called frantically.  
  
"Dawn," Xander looked into the dining area, where Buffy's sister was and the two of them rushed in from the foyer. "Dawn, where's... Spike?" The words faded away as he glared at the vampire standing in the kitchen with a beer in hand. "What are you doing here?" Xander spat defensively.  
  
"Lookin' for Buffy," Spike defiantly answered with a brazen grin. "So nice of you to ask..."  
  
"We need to talk to Buffy," Willow declared with a sense of urgency.  
  
"Geez, exactly when did she get all important?" Dawn asked, aggravated. The three others turned to her with identical expressions. "Right," she sighed, "don't answer that. Well, she's up in her room doing some spell. Good luck getting to her."  
  
"Oh, no!" Willow gasped. "We have to stop her!" Willow and Xander turned around in a rush and ran up the stairs to Buffy's bedroom. Spike jumped to his feet, quickly rounding around Dawn and rushing to the foot of the staircase, just a few feet behind Xander and Willow. The three of them ran up the stairs, Dawn following the last without the sense of urgency the others possessed.  
  
"Buffy!" Buffy could hear Willow's voice coming from outside of her bedroom. _Push it away_, she thought. _Mom needs me..._  
  
"Buffy, don't do it!" Willow shouted, grabbing the doorknob and thrusting the door open, but coming to a screeching halt before she entered the room. Xander, not a master of reflexes, slammed into Willow as Spike slammed into Xander and the three of them tossed themselves into Buffy's bedroom. They collapsed on the floor as Dawn rushed up to the room to have the door suddenly slam in her face again, but this time by an unseen force.  
  
Dawn beat on the door franticly and tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. With a gasp, Buffy's green eyes opened wide and wind pushed itself down her throat, choking her violently.

* * *

Frodo halted suddenly in his path and he clutched the One Ring tightly as wind shoved itself down his throat as well. He fell to his knees, coughing and strangling and he clutched the Ring with all his might.  
  
"Mr. Frodo!" Sam called and he reached down for his friend. Their other friends, Merry and Pippin, stood nearby and glared down at Frodo in shock as the hobbit began to convulse wildly.  
  
"Gandalf!" Pippin shouted out, calling for the wizard's aid. "Gandalf, come quickly! It's Frodo!"

* * *

Aragorn dropped down to his knees and clutched his throat as an unseen force stretched its way down his throat, clawing as it descended into his lungs. He scratched at his neck wildly, on the floor on his knees. The beautiful maiden Arwen had just entered the room when this had happened.  
  
"Aragorn!" she called in terror as the man she loved gasped for air. She rushed to his side and felt helpless as he squirmed, seemingly in tremendous pain. Arwen jumped to her feet and rushed out of the stone room, running outside frantically.  
  
"Hear me!" she called out to all that could hear. "Aragorn is falling! Bare him hence! Hear me!"  
  
Boromir stopped and turned around as he heard Lady Arwen's calls, now on the other side of the courtyard. Also nearby, walking and talking with some Elf elders, was Prince Legolas. The handsome elf prince with sharp hearing and long blonde hair turned quickly around and ran towards the sounds of Arwen's calls.  
  
He sped past a short, round man with a long, red beard that watched him run. "Elves," Gimli the Dwarf scoffed and rolled his eyes, and then heard Arwen's screams as well. Gimli grabbed his axe and raced after the elf as fast as his short legs could take him.  
  
Boromir, Legolas and Gimli were the first on scene as Arwen stood in the doorway and pointed towards Aragorn. They rushed to him as he remained doubled over on the floor, gasping for air.  
  
"He cannot breathe!" Legolas shouted with urgency.  
  
"Lift him up!" Boromir ordered. They followed the orders as Arwen watched nervously nearby.  
  
"What can I do?" she asked.  
  
"Call for your father," Boromir declared and Arwen did not waste another moment and was out the door immediately. Aragorn closed his eyes tightly as images shoved themselves through his brain.  
  
A woman, beautiful and young, with golden hair and in strange clothing – that of a man – stood atop a high tower. She held a younger woman in her arms – a young girl with golden-brown hair dressed in a long, flowing, purple dress – not as strange as the other woman's clothing. Aragorn could feel the gust of cool wind swirling around them as saw the two girls hug each other in a loving embrace as tears flowed down the apple cheeks of the younger girl's lovely face.

* * *

Frodo held his eyes closed very tightly, seeing the same images Aragorn was currently seeing. Two women, one dressed in a white shirt with light brown pants, like a man, and the other dressed in a long, violet satin dress. A small distance away from them, a gigantic cloud of light was erupting, shifting, moving and pulsing as it grew larger and larger, rumbling and crashing in the sky. A dragon flew out of the cloud of lightning, screaming with terrifying howls, the shrieks paining Frodo's ears.  
  
_"The hardest thing in this world is to live in it..."  
_  
Frodo heard the soft, calm voice of resolve in his head.  
  
_"Be brave... Live... For me..."_  
  
The older woman kissed the young girl on the cheek and forced herself to turn away. Frodo and Aragorn saw the woman's face, full of determination as she pushed away her fears.

* * *

Buffy coughed and gasped as images clouded her mind of a fiery, hellish place so real she could practically feel the heat on her face. A child with curly blonde hair and the face of man leaned over the edge of a giant rock that stretched out over a river of lava. Hanging on the very edge of the rock, moments away from falling, was another short man with brown curly hair and big blue eyes. The little man's hands were bloody as he desperately clung on to the rock.  
  
His face was full of exhaustion and he glared up at the other little man as he reaching down for him with urgency. The brown-haired man looked up at the hand of his friend and then glared down at the fiery river below.

* * *

Aragorn and Frodo watched the woman turned swiftly on her heel and race down a metal pathway, away from her companion, as the younger girl stood helplessly behind and fell into tears. With every step, the older woman became more determined as she raced to the end of the pathway as thunder crashed around her and lighting illuminated the night sky not far above her head.  
  
With a few more steps, she reached the end of the pathway and leapt off of the edge in a glorious swan dive with her arms stretched outwards as she cast her body into the cloud of lightning. Her petite body fell into the swarming cloud as if diving into an ocean of light, and she disappeared into the portal.

* * *

"Don't you let go!" the blonde man shouted to his friend, as Buffy saw both of them in the fiery chasm as before. "Don't let go...!" he called as he held out his hand as far as he could reach. The brown-haired man glared up at his friend with a new look of determination in his eyes. The brown-haired man threw up his bloody hand into his friend's grip, as the other little man held on with all of his might.

* * *

With a gasp, Buffy's eyes popped open. She looked to her left and right quickly, to see Willow and Xander on her left and Spike on her right. "What was that?" she asked. "Did anybody else see—"  
  
"Uh, Buffy..." Xander cut her off, and let the words fade away.  
  
Her friends and Spike all had stunned expressions as they stared around, mouths agape, at their surroundings. Buffy gazed at her surroundings as well.  
  
They stood in the middle of a gigantic forest as golden leaves floated down from the trees like flakes of peaceful snow. Sounds of every animal and smells of every kind wrapped around them, encasing them in the heavenly world straight from the pages of a storybook as golden light poured down on them.  
  
"Crap." 


	2. They Are Here

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).

**2: They Are Here**

"Giles!" Dawn shouted, running into Magic Box in a frenzy. Giles and Anya looked up from the counter and pushed past the customers towards Dawn.  
  
"Dawn, what are you doing here?" Giles asked, noting the terror in the girl's eyes. "Is Buffy all right?"  
  
"I – I..." the teenage girl stuttered. "She... they..."  
  
"Speak," Anya ordered, as if ordering a dog. She looked over to Giles, "Should I slap her?"  
  
"No... thank you, Anya," Giles declared, and then he refocused his attention on Buffy's stunned sister. "Dawn," he declared softly, "take a deep breath and tell me what has happened."  
  
"Buffy tried to do this spell thingy," Dawn struggled to explain. "A-and then Spike showed up and-and Willow and Xander were there and then everyone started freaking out and..." Dawn ran out of breath; it appeared as if she were hyperventilating.  
  
"Can I slap her now?" Anya asked, trying to be helpful.  
  
"No," Giles bit off, as the watcher sat Dawn down in a comfortable chair at the reference table away from the crowd of customers. "Dawn, you must try to explain clearly what happened."  
  
"They ran into Buffy's room," Dawn breathed, exasperated. "And the door shut by itself when they were in there. I tried to get it open, b-but I couldn't... I tried, but..."  
  
"Xander was in the room?" Anya asked, now interested in the fate of her boyfriend. "Xander's in trouble?"  
  
"Let her finish," Giles declared.  
  
Dawn's chest heaved as she added, "I finally got the door open and went into the room... and they were gone. All of them. Gone."  
  
"Xander's gone!" Anya exclaimed.  
  
"Anya, please," Giles looked over to her, "try to remain calm."  
  
"Calm?" she repeated. "Did you not hear what she said with your aging British ears? Xander is gone. We have to find him."  
  
"We understand that, Anya," Giles declared, annoyed. "Now we have to figure out what happened. Dawn, did you say that Buffy was performing the trance before the disappearance?"  
  
"Yeah," Dawn answered, "there was incense and sand, I think."  
  
"That doesn't make much sense," Giles said to himself, removing his glasses and cleaning them with a cloth as he mused quietly.  
  
Dawn replied, "Well, I'm not lying—"  
  
"No, that's... not what I meant," Giles answered, still in contemplation. "Well, first we have to try and decipher where they went, then we'll have a better chance of understanding what went wrong and how to reverse it."  
  
"A spell," Anya suggested. "We'll call Willow! Or, wait, we won't, I guess..."  
  
"Tara," Giles declared with a start, "we need her here. In light of the emergency at hand, I'll close the shop."  
  
"Oh," Anya replied, her tone deflated. They turned to her to see she was in a struggle with herself, "Money or Xander... Xander, right. Xander, we need to help Xander. Why couldn't he have gotten himself lost when the store was closed?"  
  
"Anya..." Giles began.  
  
"Right. Tara. On it," she replied, then went into the back of the store towards the telephone.  
  
"I'm going to do some reading on Cloutier," Giles announced. "Maybe there's something we missed..."  
  
"What can I do?" Dawn asked, jumping out of her seat.  
  
"Uh, nothing," Giles answered. "Just... sit. Wait." With that, he walked over towards the customers and announced that the store was closing and to make their final selections. Dawn sat back down in her chair with her shoulders slumped in disappointment.

* * *

"Ah!" Spike shouted, as he ducked away and tried to cover himself with his duster jacket. "It's daylight!" He ran around wildly it seemed, trying to shield himself from the sun.  
  
"Chill," Buffy declared harshly. "You're not bursting into flames!" Spike stopped, gazed around at the forest, looked up at the sunny sky, and then returned to his cool, 'Big Bad' personality.  
  
"Right," he replied, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Course I'm not."  
  
"We must be in another dimension," Willow breathed, staring around in awe at the trees. "One where the daylight doesn't kill vampires."  
  
"Great," Buffy rolled her eyes as she began to pace nervously.  
  
"Wow," Willow gasped, "this place is..." The words fell away from her. She had wondered a few feet away to the edge of the forest and gaped with wonder and the heavenly places of waterfalls and little buildings built for kings and queens. White birds flew through the air as the rays of the non-fatal sunlight kissed their golden warmth on the city before them.  
  
"...Heaven," Willow continued with a smile. The smile quickly faded, "Oh, no... we're dead. We're dead, aren't we?"  
  
"Dead or not," Xander shook his head, gazing out at the beautiful land, "we're definitely not in Kansas anymore."  
  
"No," Buffy added simply, "we're just lost in the quaint little town of where-in-the-hell."  
  
"No," Xander replied. "That would be Sunnydale."  
  
"This place is beautiful, Buffy!" Willow grinned. "I mean, just breathe in the air." She took a deep breath, relishing in every morsel of it. "I think that's real air! None of that fake, polluted, demon-infested southern California air we're used to breathing in." She glared over at Spike, "No offense."  
  
"None taken," Spike rolled his eyes, clearly irritated. "Look, Red, sorry I'm not excited as the next bloke about the bloody air, but I want to get back home. I'm gonna miss my soaps."

* * *

Aragorn sat up from the cold floor of the room housing Isildur's sword, his strength and breath having returned to him. "I feared that death was reaching for you," Arwen announced, staring down at Aragorn. He looked up to see her, along with Boromir, Gimli, Legolas and Arwen's father, Lord Elrond.  
  
"What has happened, Aragorn?" Elrond asked.

* * *

"What's happened?" a voice called, standing over Frodo. Frodo's bright blue eyes opened to see Gandalf standing over him worriedly. "Frodo, answer me."  
  
"Mr. Frodo, come back to us," he heard Sam say.  
  
"Is he going to be all right, Gandalf?" Merry asked, all of them nervous. The three hobbits and the wizard stared down at the fourth hobbit as he lied on the ground covered in Rivendell foliage. Frodo forced his eyes to focus on his friends standing over him as they looked down at him in distress.  
  
"Gandalf?" Frodo began weakly. "I saw..."  
  
The words faded off as Gandalf asked, "What is it? What did you see?" Gandalf gently sat Frodo up and the hobbit rubbed his aching head.  
  
"Something is wrong," Frodo declared, his eyes full of contemplation. His mind struggled to remember his visions, but they were like a dream that slipped away from him the harder he tried to reach. "Something has happened... or something didn't happen..."  
  
"He's not making any sense," Pippin announced. "Maybe after a nice roast and some ale..."  
  
"Quiet, fool," Gandalf declared, "let him finish."  
  
"They're here," Frodo declared, now with strength and resolve in his voice. "We have to find them."  
  
"Who are they?" Gandalf asked. "What do they look like?"  
  
"Two women and two men," a voice declared from behind them. They turned to see Aragorn standing with his sword at the ready, along with Boromir, Legolas, Gimli and Elrond. "They arrived here just a short while ago," Aragorn announced.  
  
"How'd you know that?" Pippin asked.  
  
"Because I was taken by the same force," Aragorn answered. "I saw them. Just, as I assume, Frodo did."  
  
"Lord Elrond," a voice called out as they turned to see an elf watchman bounding towards them. "Intruders have been spotted at the Western end. We fear they may be spies of Sauron."  
  
"We have to go to them," Frodo abruptly announced.  
  
"No, Frodo," Aragorn declared. "If they are spies, we cannot risk you being captured."  
  
"Did you say the Western end?" Frodo asked.  
  
"Yes," the elf answered.  
  
Frodo replied, "I don't think they're spies."

* * *

Buffy roundhouse kicked an elf who charged her, knocking him on his face. "See, this is why I don't take vacations!" Buffy declared, as she punched another approaching elf.  
  
"Who are these guys anyway?" Xander shouted – he had a little more trouble keeping the elves from attacking him. "They've all got pointy ears and blonde wigs! It's like they're in transition between a Bon Jovi concert and a Star Trek convention!" Xander pushed an elf away and was tackled to the ground by two others.  
  
"Conicio!" Willow shouted and thrust out both of her arms. The three elves charging her were thrown back powerfully and landed in the dirt. "Why are they attacking us?"  
  
"I don't know!" Buffy answered as she kneed an elf in the stomach, but then was leveled by another elf from behind.  
  
Spike jumped in the air and side-kicked an elf away from him, grinning in his vampface. He grabbed two others and slammed them against each other with joyful delight. "I can get used to this!" Spike shouted powerfully. "That's right – look out, new world! William the Bloody's in town!" He shoved his elbow into the stomach of another elf and turned around, punching him in the face. With a few more swift kicks, the elf was on the ground.  
  
Spike turned to see another struggling to get off of the ground. Spike slammed his foot on the elf's back. "Not so fast!" Spike grinned. "I'll tell you when the party's over, mate."  
  
Spike looked up suddenly to be staring at the end of three wooden arrows pointed directly at his face. Legolas held the arrows back tightly and with his blue eyes he dared the creature to make another move. Behind Legolas were at least thirty other elves, all brandishing bows and arrows, all pointed at Spike, Buffy, Xander and Willow.  
  
"All right," Spike took his foot off of his victim as he stared at the wooden arrows with dread, "I guess that would be the end, then."  
  
Lord Elrond appeared, walking past the other elves up to Spike and the others. He stopped and glared at the strangers in bizarre clothing as the others followed: first Aragorn, then Boromir, then Gimli, and then Gandalf was next and he was followed by the hobbits.  
  
Aragorn and Frodo both stared at Buffy, recognizing her instantly. The others were familiar to them as well, having quickly seen them in the forest where they now were before Aragorn and Frodo woke up. Buffy stared at the hobbits in confusion, especially at Frodo and Sam.  
  
"Will," Buffy whispered, leaning over to her. "Do you recognize them?"  
  
"Recognize who?" Willow whispered back, both of them nervous.  
  
"The midgets," Buffy answered. "Behind the tall geezer with the pointy hat."  
  
"Oh," Willow whispered under her breath. "No, why?"  
  
"I saw them before," Buffy softly declared, "back in my room."  
  
"They were in your room?"  
  
"No. I had a vision before I got here. Two of them were in it."  
  
"Which two?"  
  
"The scrawny one with brown hair and big ol' angst-y eyes?" Buffy answered. "That's one of them and then the blonde one standing next to him."  
  
"The pudgy one?" Willow whispered.  
  
"That one," Buffy nodded.  
  
A smile stretched across Spike's face as he glared at the two humans in front of him – especially the blonde one, Boromir. Spike knew he had his attention loud and clear as Boromir glared at the vampire in disgust.  
  
"Who are you?" Elrond demanded, then glanced over at Spike. "What are you?"  
  
"Why ask?" Boromir declared. "They must be orcs!"  
  
"What'd he call us?" Xander asked.  
  
"Something about Björk..." Willow answered, just as lost as the others.  
  
Xander turned his attention towards Elrond – another pointy-ears guy with long brown hair in some kind of dress. He continued to stare at his long face as if he recognized it.  
  
Gandalf closely watched the blonde woman, yet concerned himself more with her red-haired friend. Willow saw him staring at her and looked away nervously. "This one is a sorceress," Gandalf declared as he gazed at Willow. "She has power."  
  
Willow stuttered as the attention of everyone turned towards her, "W-who me?"  
  
"She wouldn't be the only one," Buffy replied with a calm, yet threatening tone as she glared at Gandalf and the others.  
  
"They are spies for Sauron!" Boromir decreed.  
  
"Or Saruman," Elrond suggested.  
  
"Look," Buffy interrupted, "we don't know any... 'Sorry-mom,' or whoever, but we're from Sunnydale." She received blank stares. "California?" They glanced at each other in confusion, and then stared at her in silence. "Oh, boy, where are we?"  
  
"Rivendell," Aragorn answered. "In Middle Earth."  
  
"Middle Earth?" Xander declared, knowingly. "Wait a minute! I get it now!" They turned to him as he looked over to Willow and whispered, "Is there a Middle Earth?" She shook her head 'no' and he turned back to them replying, "Oh. Well, never mind, then. I don't."  
  
"They're not spies of Sauron," Aragorn declared. "Or Saruman. They're the ones I saw in my vision."  
  
"Look at this one!" Boromir declared, still staring at Spike. "He has the face of a monster. You can't possibly—"  
  
"And you're the staple of handsome 'round this place," Spike laughed as he morphed into his human guise. "Is that right, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Nose?"  
  
"We should take them back into the city and examine them further," Aragorn declared to Elrond. He stepped out in front of them, between Spike, who was in front of the Scoobies, and Elrond and Legolas, who stood in front of the others. "There must be a reason they are here."  
  
"Hey!" Spike snapped as he grabbed Aragorn's shoulder. "No one's takin' me anywhere, you bloody p—"  
  
His words were cut off as Aragorn suddenly drew his sword, spun around and swung it at Spike's neck, stopping it only centimeters from his throat. Spike was silent and stepped back as Aragorn glared at him warningly, his Ranger sword at the ready. "Your insolence has been noted," he declared.  
  
Spike glared at him angrily in return as Xander stood back and watched with a beaming smile, "I really like this guy."


	3. History Repeats Itself

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).  
  
Another thing - I know nothing of Latin and I'm improvising with French. Bare with me, lol.

**3: History Repeats Itself**

"I came as soon as I could," Tara declared, rushing into the Magic Box with a brown paper sack in her arms. Giles, Anya, Dawn and Buffy's boyfriend, Riley, sat at the reference table in the back of the store. "Are you sure?" Tara asked as she put the bag down, her eyes filled with worry. "Are you sure she's...gone?"  
  
"Not to worry, Tara," Giles declared. "Once we locate them, we can begin the process of getting them back. Now, do you have Willow's things?"  
  
"Yes," Tara breathed and she pulled a green spiral notebook full of Willow's notes out of the paper bag. "She always carries this around. I-I also have a hairbrush, a locket and a stuffed bear..."  
  
"I think that's enough," Giles nodded.  
  
"Here's one of Buffy's scarves," Riley declared. "She left it at my house." He placed the tan silk scarf down on the wooden table.  
  
"I have one of Xander's ugly sweaters," Anya announced as she pulled out a plastic bag from behind the counter. "He seems to like it very much. I also have one of Xander's porn magazines. He seems to like that very much, too."  
  
"Uh," Giles cut her off quickly, "thank you, Anya, I think the sweater will, um, do for this occasion." After Anya placed the sweater in the center of the table along with Willow's notebook and Buffy's scarf, Giles turned to Dawn, "Are the salts ready?"  
  
"Nice and salty," Dawn answered, as she stood up with two jars of different colored salts, one blue and one green.  
  
"I'll get the candles," Riley offered.  
  
"Now you must be careful with that, Dawn," Giles declared as he flipped through a thick book of magiks. "When combined with certain materials, those salts have a tendency to become extremely acidic in nature."  
  
"Oh," Dawn blushed as she sat the jars down on the table, "then I guess I shouldn't have spilled some on the floor and swept it under your rug." Giles looked up from his book, shifting uncomfortably as he glared at Dawn's innocent, 'not my fault' expression.  
  
"Right," Giles breathed, slowly releasing his steam silently as his eyes returned to the text.

* * *

The Scoobies were gathered in Lord Elrond's chambers, overlooking Rivendell, along with Elrond himself, Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas, Boromir and the hobbits. A handful of elves stood guard inside of the room, at the doors and along the walls, keeping a watchful eye on the strangers.  
  
Elrond sat in his chair, while Gandalf sat a few feet away and smoked a pipe silently. "Let me try to understand," Elrond sighed, touching his hand to the golden headband crown around his aching skull, "you say that you do not know how you arrived here and you are not from here."  
  
"In a nutshell," Buffy nodded, while she and the other Scoobies stood in front of Elrond while the others stood around them.  
  
"Explain to us what you know," Gandalf declared.  
  
"Do we really have to go over this again?" Buffy rolled her eyes, her arms crossed. "Look, I was at home in my room doing this trance dance when all of a sudden my friends and Spike, burst through my door. The next thing I know, my Dead Zone's going all wacky and I'm making like Johnny Smith with the visions."  
  
The people of Middle Earth stared at each other as if she were speaking in tongues. "What Buffy's trying to say," Willow politely piped up, "is that she was performing a spell... of sorts... and then something went wrong. We ended up in the middle of your backyard."  
  
"What sort of spell are we talking about?" Gandalf asked.  
  
"A trance," Willow answered, "it-it was supposed to 'pull the curtain back.' Buffy was using it to see if there were any demons in her home affecting her mom."  
  
"And there are," Buffy declared, losing her patience. "Which is why I need to get back to her. She needs my help."  
  
"Wait," Boromir replied in confusion, "_you..._ fight demons?"  
  
Buffy shook her head slowly with a 'duh' expression, "Kinda weekly now for the past five years."  
  
"Buffy slays," Xander proudly declared, "Willow casts, I pun, and Spike..." He glanced over at the vampire who glared back at him. "Well, he's Spike."  
  
"Which brings up another question," Buffy decreed, turning to the Scoobies, "what were you guys doing there? What's with the going Cops on my bedroom door?"  
  
"It was about the spell," Willow answered in a worried, breathy voice. "Xander and I found out that the trance was unstable."  
  
"Oh," Buffy nodded with a sigh, "something that could have been brought to my attention a little sooner..."  
  
Willow added, "Well, it wasn't always unstable. Just now, for some reason."  
  
"See, that's what happens when you go with the bargain brand spells," Xander nodded.  
  
"I'm not familiar with this 'pull the curtain back' spell," Gandalf announced as he mused over it.  
  
"Are you some sort of mojo-worker yourself?" Xander asked.  
  
"This is Gandalf the Grey," Elrond announced, stunned by their ignorance. "He is one of the greatest wizards ever known."  
  
"Cool!" Willow grinned wide with excitement. "Ooh, do you have a-a cape and staff like the wizards in the books? And a crystal ball, too?"  
  
"He's a wizard, Will," Xander turned to her. "Not Miss Cleo."  
  
"He's got fireworks!" Merry excitedly declared.  
  
"Of every kind!" Pippin grinned.  
  
Merry added, "Everyone knows Gandalf's fireworks are a sight to see!"  
  
Spike scoffed with a laugh, "Please..." He turned to the wizard and the others, pointing at Gandalf, "Is that all Merlin's got? Bloody fireworks?"  
  
Gandalf stared at Spike from beneath his brow and thrust the end of his staff towards the vampire. He was suddenly shoved backwards, but kept his feet on the ground and slid across the floor several feet.  
  
Spike looked down at his feet, and then up at Gandalf, pointing at him again, "All right, I'm gettin' sick 'n tired of you buggers pushing me around, yeah?"  
  
"Returning to the topic at hand," Elrond sighed, "where did you come from?"  
  
"Earth," Willow answered. "Regular old earth."  
  
"From America, more specifically," Xander answered. "Land of hot dogs, professional wrestling, boy bands, HBO... Oh, and vampires, demons, and the occasional Big Bad who wants to throw the world into a hell dimension."  
  
"You're a band of warriors for the forces of good?" Aragorn asked.  
  
"That's one..." Buffy nodded slowly, "..._interesting_ way of putting it. Yep, we're practically knights in shining armor."  
  
"Except we're not knights," Willow responded, thinking that these people would take her words literally.  
  
"Which calls for less armor," Xander added finally.

* * *

"Hermes, we call to you!" Giles called out as he, Anya, Riley and Tara joined hands around the circular reference table, littered with items belonging to Buffy, Willow and Xander. Around the items were two circles of salt with thick candles and herbs. Dawn watched in the distance, not being allowed to participate in any 'spell stuff.' "We beseech you to hear our call, by the will of your father Zeus!"  
  
Tara, with her eyes closed, raised her voice as wind began to blow through the shop, "Hermes, we ask of you, god of travelers, to find the lost souls in the distance. Look through the barriers, thick and thin, and show us the path."  
  
"Invenio ceteri," they chanted together as Tara placed a white cloth over the belongings of their friends, two-by-three feet in size. "Invenio alter... Invenio ceteri... Invenio alter... Invenio ceteri... Invenio alter..."  
  
The Magic Box rumbled and groaned as the candles blew out and a massive gust of wind wrapped around them. "Keep chanting!" Giles ordered.  
  
"Invenio ceteri," they continued, "Invenio alter... Invenio ceteri... Invenio alter..."  
  
Suddenly, black marks appeared on the white cloth as if they were burned into the fabric. The marks formed a wide map with names and places they had never heard of. 'Hobbiton', 'Rohan', 'Minas Tirith', and 'Rivendell'... Giles looked down at the corner of the map and read to himself the bold, black letters: MIDDLE EARTH.  
  
Over the howling of the wind, a dark, terrifying voice whispered menacingly.  
  
_"I... see... you...."_  
  
All of a sudden, a red and orange eye of fire appeared, floating a few inches above the belongings of their friends. In the center of the eye, much like that of a cat or reptile, a black sliver of a pupil narrowed as it glowered at Tara, Riley, Anya and Giles and a massive gust of wind and light exploded from the table throwing them backwards across the room.  
  
Tara and Riley were tossed away with ease, Riley crashing into the ladder leading up to the second level of the store and Tara smashing into a wooden chair. Anya was thrown into a shelf, knocking merchandise off of it as she and the merchandise clamored to the floor. Giles was thrown into the glass casing of the counter, smashing it to pieces. Dawn screamed, terrified, as she made her way to each of them eventually with the franticness of a disturbed wasps' nest.  
  
"Put out the fire!" Tara screamed, pointing at the reference table. Riley jumped up to see that the white cloth was in flames and he quickly patted the fire out.  
  
"Giles!" Dawn exclaimed, as she rushed to the watcher. He pushed himself off of the glass painfully and came to a stand.  
  
"Oh, no," he breathed, looking over at Riley with the cloth. "Not the map..." He pushed himself over to the table as Tara helped Anya come to a stand, Anya brushing herself off in the process.  
  
"What was that thing?" Riley asked.  
  
"Clearly, we tapped into a dimension where we were not wanted," Giles breathed, examining the charred cloth. "That must have been some sort of guardian of the dimension..." He looked back up to the others with worry in his eyes, "Or something that didn't want us meddling in its plans..."  
  
"Can you still read the map?" Tara asked.  
  
"Only a very small portion of it," Giles breathed, struggling to catch his breath. "But I'm afraid it would be to no avail regardless. Whatever set it on fire – the thing that made its presence known – it has probably blocked us out of its dimension."  
  
"No, we have to try something," Riley declared, tension starting to grate at his nerves. "We can't just leave Buffy and the others there, no matter what tries to stop us."  
  
"But the door's locked," Anya answered solemnly, beginning to lose hope. "What can we do?"  
  
"We can break it down," Riley replied, determined.  
  
"Whatever we do," Giles declared, staring down at the charred map, "we must act quickly..." His eyes were thick and full of contemplation.  
  
"What do you mean?" Dawn asked. "What's wrong?"  
  
Giles stared down at the map, "I think I know where they are..."  
  
He gazed down at the only un-charred place on the map and his eyes were dripping with worry. It was a mountainous region simply labeled: MORDOR.

* * *

"'A mysterious traveler from another world set foot on our land,'" Elrond declared, reading from a book aloud. He paced back and forth in his quarters in front of the people of Middle Earth and the Scooby Gang as he flipped through the pages. "'He wore the strangest forms of clothing and his speech was unrecognizable at first. He said that he had performed a spell to erase the façade of magic from his sight. When asked of his home, he answered, 'Terre.'"  
  
"'Earth,'" Willow translated in shock. "A Frenchman?"  
  
"'When asked his name,'" Elrond continued to read, "'he answered, 'Cloutier.'"  
  
"Monsieur Silky Knickers?" Buffy abruptly burst out. "No way!"  
  
"You're telling me that this guy got sent back here performing his own trance over five hundred years ago?" Xander replied in shock. "Now there's some fine print that should've been addressed."  
  
"Wasn't five hundred years ago," Spike announced as he stood in the corner by himself.  
  
"What do you mean?" Buffy asked him.  
  
"Oh, look," Xander decreed with faux pride, "our little Spikey's taken to history teaching."  
  
"Think hard, you git!" Spike spat back at him. "We're in a different dimension. Time doesn't move the same here as it does in our world. Probably missed the Manchester United game thanks to you buggers..."  
  
"He is right," Elrond declared, reading the book carefully. "This occurrence happened a very long time ago..." His blue eyes filled with worry as he looked up from the book and out the window.  
  
"When did Cloutier appear?" Gandalf asked.  
  
"Three thousand years ago," Elrond answered with hesitation. He turned to Gandalf as they shared a knowing look, "At the beginning of the first age of darkness."

* * *

Giles laid a very old book down on the cleared-off reference table. "Middle Earth," Giles announced as they stared down at the book and charred map. "A dimension very distant from our own. In fact, there's only been one person in known history to have traveled there and returned – Cloutier, himself."  
  
"So when Buffy did the trance it must have triggered the same effect," Tara replied, slowly understanding. "It must have sent her and everyone else in the room to the same place."  
  
"Correct," Giles nodded and then signaled back to the book. "This book is written by Cloutier's son. Cloutier had disappeared for a week and returned to this world over a decade older."  
  
"So time moves faster there?" Riley asked.  
  
"Exactly," Giles replied.  
  
"But I don't understand," Anya declared, her arms crossed. "That spell has been done many times. Shouldn't more people have gone to Middle Earth?"  
  
"That would be the assumption, except for one detail," Giles began. "When Buffy completed the spell, she opened up a hole between their dimension and ours. This is a very rare and powerful phenomenon that doesn't just happen because of a simple trance. There has to be more than one factor at work here."  
  
"Okay," Riley shook his head, understandingly. "Run that by me in English now."  
  
"The Middle Earth calendar and our calendar run at different speeds," Giles explained, "yet the dates and times eventually coincide. When this happens, it makes the bounds of both dimensions weak. The scales begin to tip allowing forces, both evil and benign, a chance to claim their worlds. Cloutier's spell not only pulled back the curtain, but ripped a hole in the dimensional fabric of the universe."  
  
"But the hole's still open, right?" Dawn asked. "I mean, we can... toss a rope or something and get them back?"  
  
"Theoretically," Giles nodded, "yes. Cloutier found his way back; I don't see why Buffy and the others cannot as well."  
  
"Is Middle Earth dangerous?" Tara asked, with deep concern.  
  
Giles looked down at the map and hesitated, "Not all of it. Cloutier spoke of places both heavenly and peaceful." They sighed with relief, and then he added, "But according to Cloutier, there are also places in Middle Earth that are..." Giles took a deep breath, "Quite hellish."  
  
They were silent for quite a while before Riley spoke up, conviction in his words, "Buffy is a fighter. She can handle herself anywhere. And she won't let anything happen to the others."  
  
"Except maybe to Spike," Dawn added.  
  
"Well," Riley answered, "sacrifices have to be made..."  
  
"He's right," Anya nodded, "they can take care of themselves until we find a way to get them out of there."  
  
"We'll have to move quickly," Giles declared.  
  
"Right," Dawn responded, "'cause we don't wanna wait so long that they're gonna need diapers and Metamucil when we pull them out."  
  
"That's not our main problem," Giles replied, removing his glasses and running his hands tiredly through his graying hair. "This dimensional hole will not be there for long. Once the gap of time between the two dimensions widens enough, the dimensions will eventually repair themselves and the path will be sealed until the next time the calendars begin to align."  
  
"We can't let that happen," Tara shook her head with worry.  
  
"That's still not the worst of it," Giles replied.  
  
"Oh, God," Riley turned to him, "there's more?"  
  
He nodded, "The disappearance of the others has left a void in our dimension. People that are supposed to be here are not anymore. The dimensions will ultimately try to fill this void, but it cannot be filled. Instead, reality itself will mend to their absence."  
  
"Wait a minute," Anya replied, "you're saying that—"  
  
"Not only will Buffy and the others never return," Giles looked up at them, "their entire histories in this dimension will cease to exist." 


	4. Thirteen Companions

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).

**4: Thirteen Companions**

"So what I'm saying is," Buffy declared, pacing back and forth in front of the others, still in Elrond's chambers, "something is happening now that shouldn't be happening. We're here and we're supposed to be there."  
  
"I think that's evident," Boromir replied.  
  
"But this goes both ways," Buffy added, "something that's supposed to be happening right now isn't happening."  
  
"It's caused by both your absence and presence," Elrond replied.  
  
"Something like that," Buffy replied. "Right now, we can't do anything about us not being there, but we can do something about us being here."  
  
"And what's your plan, milady?" Gimli asked.  
  
"Well," Buffy turned to her friends and Spike, whom she had previously discussed this plan with, "it goes like this. Whatever you were doing before we dropped out of the sky, go back to doing it."  
  
"That's impossible," Aragorn answered. "This is a monumental event. Are you telling us to just ignore it?"  
  
"You'll have to," Willow replied. "The energies at work here could really be dangerous. If we're not careful, we could throw both of our worlds out of the loop."  
  
"That plan is not acceptable," Elrond declared boldly, shaking his head.  
  
Spike looked at him, "I suppose you have a better one, yeah?"  
  
"We have our own matters to consider here," Elrond replied. "They do not concern you or your world."  
  
"They are not in their world, Lord Elrond," Gandalf declared, speaking for the first time in a while. "They are now in ours and there is nothing anyone can do about it."  
  
"Come on, this place is like heaven," Xander shrugged his shoulders. "What problem could you possibly have that's so bad?" Elrond and Gandalf turned to him in silence, then Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas and Gimli. Finally, Frodo looked up at him and then looked away.  
  
"What?" Xander replied. "What'd I say?"

* * *

A circle of chairs was placed outdoors amongst the leaves and gardens of Rivendell. Many people and other things moved to the circle of chairs to take their seats. Buffy watched silently from a window in a room nearby. Her room was bathed in light from the golden sun that was about to set. She looked around at the magnificent bedroom that seemed to glitter in golden wonder.  
  
Buffy wondered if the rooms were the same for Willow, Xander and Spike as well. She glanced around and felt almost like a princess, remembering a time in her life when she would have loved to bask in this kind of glory. Things were different now. Things were harder. She was harder. She was not a princess, but the Slayer, and that was something that she could not change.  
  
Buffy turned to the window to see the leaves floating down continuously. Willow was right. She was very much in heaven. She turned away from the window again, remembering her mom and her sister waiting for her at home. She was needed in hell.  
  
"Your burden is heavy for someone your age," a voice softly declared. Buffy turned to see a young woman with long, dark hair extended down past her waist standing the doorway. Her skin was porcelain white and her eyes were bright blue as she spoke softly above a whisper. "Why do you choose to carry it in seclusion?"  
  
Buffy glared at her, plainly, "I don't..."  
  
"But you do," she replied, entering the room, her long, beautiful, ornate dress reaching to the floor. Buffy thought to herself, Now that is what a princess is. "You feel as if you are bound to carry the fates of your friends... and your family... and your world."  
  
"What are you doing," Buffy asked, "some sort of mind reading thingy?"  
  
"I think you are brave," she said with a smile, "putting the fates of others before your own, though you may never see your home again."  
  
Buffy replied, "I've been wishing I weren't on the Hellmouth for a long time, and yet I'm still there. Well, I was at least, but I don't think a ride on the Magic School Bus is going to change that."  
  
"You're destined to be alone, aren't you?" she asked.  
  
Buffy was quiet as she remembered the speech of the first slayer: _'The penetrating wound. The blood-cry. Absolute. Alone...'  
_  
Buffy looked up at the woman, as she declared, "You must learn that you do not have to face your destiny on your own. A general is no one without an army."  
  
"I have an army," Buffy answered. "Half of it's here, half of it's there."  
  
"Yes, they are very close to your heart," she declared with a sad smile. "But you won't let them in your heart."  
  
Buffy stared at her quietly, and then finally replied, "Look, I really don't want to talk about this now. This whole place is just kind of freaking me out. Also, it could have something to do with the fact that I've never met you and I don't even know your name but we're having this conversation about my life which you just happen to know a whole lot about." She took a deep breath after that long sentence as the women let out a light chuckle.  
  
"Forgive me," she replied, "my name is Arwen Evenstar, daughter of Lord Elrond."  
  
"I'm Buffy Summers," she answered with a smile, "daughter of Joyce and Hank."  
  
"I had almost forgotten why I had come," Arwen smiled. "My father has allowed you and your friends to attend his council." She glared at Buffy with a bit of a polite frown, "It would probably be best if you wore something, a little..."  
  
"Less southern California?" Buffy asked. "More Renaissance Fair?" She looked down at her tight, white tank top with the gold foil devil printed on it, a good choice with her tight, worn jeans. But Buffy figured she wasn't exactly 5th Avenue styling in Middle Earth at that point. Arwen smiled again and held out an off-white, long, flowing dress with wide flares at the arms.  
  
"You've got to be kidding me," Buffy said, glaring at the dress as she shook her head.

* * *

Buffy sat on one side of Gandalf in the circle while Frodo sat on the other side, keeping quiet and to himself, being the only hobbit around. Buffy noticed a group of dwarves, Gimli included, as they walked over to their seats. As they passed a group of elves, Legolas with them, the two groups exchanged loathing looks, then sat across from each other in the circle.  
  
"What's up with them?" Buffy whispered to Gandalf.  
  
"Dwarves and elves have a bitter history," the wizard whispered back to her. "They tend to be... impatient with one another." Buffy made a silent 'oh' with a nod. Aragorn, Boromir and several other humans were also gathered at this 'secret meeting'. Willow approached Buffy from her left, wearing a stunning green dress, not unlike Buffy's. She sat down with a wide grin on her face.  
  
"Isn't this place amazing?" she whispered to her best friend.  
  
"It's a trip," Buffy nodded. "Any sign of Xander or Spike?"  
  
Just then, the girls turned to see Xander stroll in proudly in his Middle Earth garb. His clothes were not different from Aragorn's as he chivalrously sat down beside Willow. "Mi-ladies," he declared with a cheesy grin.  
  
Buffy and Willow tried not to laugh when they saw Spike walk in, dressed similarly to Xander, but with an uncomfortable pout on his face. He still wore his black, duster jacket over his Middle Earth clothes as he stomped in and plopped down in the chair next to Xander. Xander stared at him in silence.  
  
"If you say a word," Spike threatened with a low-toned hiss, "I'll tear your neck out."  
  
"I don't think that's a good idea, Spike," Xander grinned widely. "I don't think they have Excedrin in this dimension."  
  
"Just get your bloody kicks out now," Spike scoffed with a twisted, angry scowl. "'Look at Spike! He looks like sodding King Arthur! Ha ha!'"  
  
"Well, now that you mention it," Xander declared, staring at Spike. A second later he burst out into laughter, chuckling in Spike's ear as the vampire glared away from him, grinding his teeth.  
  
"Strangers from distant lands," Elrond declared, standing before them all and beginning the council's meeting, "friends of old... you've been summoned here to answer the threat of Mordor."  
  
Xander leaned over to Buffy, "I swear I've seen that guy before..."  
  
Elrond gazed at them all as he continued, "Middle Earth now stands upon the brink of destruction. None can escape it. You will unite, or you will fall. Each race is bound to this fate, this one doom."  
  
Elrond looked over to the young, peaceful hobbit and outstretched his arm, "Bring forth the Ring, Frodo." Buffy looked over at the hobbit as he fearfully stood up and walked over to the small, stone table in the center of the circle. He removed a golden ring from his pocket and placed it in the center of the table for all to see. His task having been done for good, he returned to his seat in silence and took a deep sigh of relief.  
  
Willow turned away from Frodo and towards the Ring on the table, as did Buffy, Xander and Spike, along with the others. The members of the council stared at the Ring quietly as it spoke to each of them, whispering silent things they could barely hear. Buffy shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked over to Willow who had a fearful look of dread on her face. Xander turned away from the ring and slowly exhaled as Spike felt a sting in his head where the chip in his brain was implanted.  
  
"It is a gift," Boromir breathed with a smile as he stared at the Ring. Buffy and the others in the council turned to him in confusion as he stood up before them. "A gift to the foes of Mordor. Why not use this Ring?" Aragorn and Gandalf exchanged concerned glances.  
  
"Long has my father, the Steward of Gondor," Boromir explained to them, "kept the forces of Mordor at bay. By the blood of our people are your lands kept safe!" Boromir paced in front of them, glaring at them all, "Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him."  
  
"Okay," Willow raised her hand, short of breath, "can I just say that that sounds like it may be the worst idea in the history of bad ideas?"  
  
"What do you know about this, sorceress?" Boromir defensively demanded, turning towards her with his voice raised. "You do not live in this world! You do not share the knowledge of it that we possess."  
  
"True," Buffy answered, "but when mystical rings start whispering sweet nothings into your ear, that generally doesn't lead to hugs and kisses."  
  
"She is right," Aragorn declared as Aragorn slowly turned towards her. "You cannot wield it. None of us can. The One Ring answers to Sauron alone and it has no other master."  
  
"I gotta ask," Xander piped up. "Who's this Sauron guy, anyway?"  
  
"Sauron is the Dark Lord," Elrond declared. "It was he who forged the Ring, pouring into it all of his evil, so that he could enslave the world."  
  
"Oh," Xander answered, "I knew it had to have something to do with ruling the world."  
  
Spike answered smartly to Xander, "I suppose we wouldn't all be here if the bugger wanted to play chess, now would we?"  
  
"What would a Ranger know of this matter?" Boromir challenged him.  
  
"This is no mere Ranger," Legolas stood up defensively as Boromir turned to him. "He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn."  
  
"And that means what exactly?" Buffy asked, getting lost again.  
  
"This is Isildur's heir?" Boromir declared, staring at Aragorn – not impressed in the least.  
  
"What about you sealing a door?" Willow asked.  
  
"Isildur was the King of Gondor," Legolas declared.  
  
"Oh..." Buffy and Willow replied simultaneously. They looked over to Aragorn who did not seem to enjoy the attention. He muttered something to Legolas in a weird language the Scoobies did not understand as the elf sat down in his chair.  
  
Boromir turned to Legolas, "Gondor has no king." He declared to Aragorn, with a hint of bitterness as he walked back to his seat, "Gondor needs no king."  
  
He sat down as Xander declared, "Gee, _someone's_ not jealous."  
  
"Aragorn is right," Gandalf declared. "We cannot use it."  
  
"You have only one choice," Elrond declared in a booming, deep voice.  
  
"That's never a good sign," Willow sighed nervously. "Variety is better."  
  
"The Ring must be destroyed," Elrond continued. They looked at each other in silence as Frodo's eyes wondered to the Ring.  
  
"Well, fine then," Spike declared, getting bored. "Whack it with something and be done with it."  
  
"What are we waiting for?" Gimli declared, as he retrieved an axe from his side and stood up. He walked over to the Ring, holding the axe and brought it down directly on the golden Ring. The ground beneath them trembled as the Frodo shuttered and grimaced in pain. The blade of the axe shattered with an explosion as Gimli was tossed backwards onto the ground.  
  
"Hey, little guy," Buffy turned to Frodo, who held his head in pain, "you okay over there?"  
  
"The Ring cannot be destroyed, Gimli, son of Gloin, by any craft that we here possess," Elrond declared. "The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade."  
  
Buffy closed her eyes tightly as she remembered her vision of the fiery, hellish place where the two hobbits were. "It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came," Elrond announced gravely. Frodo continued to stare at the Ring as Buffy opened her eyes and looked over at Frodo.  
  
"One of you," Elrond continued, "must do this."  
  
"One does not simply walk into Mordor," Boromir declared, glaring up with worry in his eyes. "Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep. And the Great Eye is ever-watchful." Boromir stared at them all grimly, "It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire, and ash, and dust... The very air you breathe is poisonous fume. It's—"  
  
"Just like high school," Xander declared, reminiscing in his past.  
  
"With ten-thousand men you could not do this," Boromir shouted, turning to Xander then back to Elrond. "It is folly."  
  
Buffy stood up, raising her voice to Boromir in frustration, "Where were you when Lord Enron was speaking?"  
  
"Elrond," Gandalf corrected.  
  
"Right!" Buffy answered, glaring around at the members of the council. "Look, the fate of your world lies in this Ring. Are you just gonna shrink back like a bunch of pansies?"  
  
"The Ring must be destroyed!" Legolas declared, jumping to his feet.  
  
Spike looked over at him, "I think that was pretty much covered, Captain Obvious."  
  
"And I suppose you think you're the one to do it!" Gimli raised his voice, glaring at Legolas.  
  
"And if we fail, what then?" Boromir stood up, glaring at Buffy. "What happens when Sauron takes back what is his?"  
  
"Then you take it from him again," Buffy said strongly. "It's called fighting the good fight. My ex-boyfriend's practically wrote a novel on it, if you're ever interested."  
  
Xander chimed in again, "Maybe things would run a little more smoothly if everyone just stopped standing up—"  
  
"I will be dead before I see the Ring in the hands of an Elf!" Gimli shouted, cutting Xander off as he came to an abrupt stand. Suddenly, everyone jumped up and began to argue with each other – the Elves with the Dwarves, Buffy with Boromir, so on and so forth. Xander rolled his eyes as he sat back in his chair and Spike tilted his head back.  
  
"Bloody hell," Spike sighed. "I need a drink."  
  
Elrond declared to him, "You are underestimating the gravity of this situation—"  
  
"Hey," Spike looked up, "sod off, headband!"  
  
Gandalf came to a stand and joined in the argument while Frodo became fixated on the Ring. Willow's breaths became short as she glared over at Frodo, then back to the Ring, then back to Frodo again. Willow could sense the evil inside of the Ring as it tugged and pulled at her.  
  
Frodo looked away from the Ring and stood up, turning towards the other people fighting. "I will take it," he declared, but it was a mere whisper from the small hobbit over the roar of their yelling.  
  
Willow shot up out of her chair. "No, Will," Xander declared. "Not you, too—"  
  
"Hey!" Willow screamed. Each and everyone of them was pushed backwards, away from each other by and unseen force. They turned to see to see her eyes thick and dark with Magic. "Would all of you just shut the hell up!" she screamed, the color of her hair darkening for a split second. Buffy watched her friend in confusion as the anger drained from Willow's eyes and her pupils returned to their usual size. She looked as if the wind had been knocked from her as she slightly swayed. "Uh," she breathed, "Frodo wants to say something."  
  
Willow sat back down as they turned to the hobbit. "I will take it," Frodo declared bravely. "I will take the Ring to Mordor." There was a thick blanket of silence covering each of them as they turned to the hobbit in surprise, some of them smiling, some of them fretful. Frodo looked up at the men and struggled to once again find his voice, "Though... I do not know the way."  
  
Gandalf smiled, "I will help you bear this burden, Frodo Baggins, as long as it is yours to bear." He placed a friendly hand on Frodo's shoulder as Aragorn stood up from his chair, not being one of the ones in the argument.  
  
Buffy watched him, unsurprised as he declared, "If by my life or death I can protect you... I will." Aragorn walked over to Frodo and kneeled down before him, coming eye-to-eye as he softly added, "You have my sword."  
  
"And you have my bow," the group turned to Legolas as he approached them.  
  
"And my axe," Gimli declared heartily.  
  
"And Mr. Pointy," Buffy vowed. The council turned to her in confusion as she blushed and reworded her answered, "Uh, and my stake..."  
  
"And my magic!" Willow excitedly added with a smile.  
  
Xander replied, "And my... uh, um, cunning... sense of humor..." The Scoobies stood with Aragorn, Frodo, Gandalf, Legolas and Gimli as the entire council looked over at Spike, who remained in his seat, appearing as if he'd zoned out.  
  
"What?" he looked up at them. "Don't expect me to join your sodding crusade..." They continued to stare at him. With a painful sigh, Spike rolled his eyes and stood up, "Bloody hell." He walked over and joined the others with Frodo.  
  
"If this is indeed the will of the council," Boromir declared, as they turned to him, "then Gondor will see it done."  
  
"Hey!" a shout was heard from behind the bushes. Sam ran up beside his friend and declared to them all, "Mr. Frodo's not going anywhere without me." Buffy stared at the two hobbits with worry in her heart, flashing back to her vision of the chasm.  
  
"We're coming, too!" another little voice called out as the two other hobbits, Merry and Pippin, ran out from behind a wall and up to Frodo and Sam. "You'll have to send us home tied up in a sack to stop us!" Merry declared.  
  
"Have you got any other Cabbage Patch friends here?" Spike said to Frodo.  
  
Elrond stared at them all, "Thirteen companions. You shall be The Fellowship of the Ring." Buffy sighed with worry, feeling that something was not right about the words that he had just said.  
  
"Okay, first things first," Willow announced. "There's no way I'm wearing this anymore."  
  
"I second that!" Spike declared.  
  
"Okay," Buffy stared defiantly at the One Ring as it stared back at her. "Let's get this bitch to Mount Doom." She turned around to see the Middle Earth part of the Fellowship staring at her strangely.  
  
"Well," Pippin declared with a positive smile, "this is gonna be fun." 


	5. Equilibrium

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).

**5: Equilibrium**

The clock inside of the Magic Box struck two in the afternoon. Giles, standing alone behind the counter, looked up at the clock, his eyes full of apprehension. Dawn had been silent for the past half hour, a true blessing in Giles' eyes, while the others were out on a mission. His Slayer had been missing since noon. He had no idea of calculating how many days had passed in Middle Earth, and prayed to himself that she and the others were safe.  
  
Giles pushed those thoughts quickly away from his mind. With a sigh, he replaced his glasses on his face and walked out from behind the counter, heading towards the door beneath the balcony of the second level. He went through the door and entered the darkened training room with a duty to get to the other desk, searching for a misplaced book.  
  
He reached the desk and his eyes gazed around the dim workspace, finding no book in their sight. He hastily began to open drawers and shelves, searching for the book. He opened the bottom left drawer and suddenly froze as he glared down at its contents.  
  
Buffy, Willow and Xander stared up at him with sparkling eyes and elated expressions. A picture, he remembered, taken in the Sunnydale High School library four years ago. It was there where they met every day; where Giles and Buffy trained; where Buffy first learned that her watcher could betray her; where Giles first learned how much he cared for Buffy; where they stood defiantly before hell itself and closed its gateway.  
  
Giles' legs could no longer hold him up. He plopped down in the chair and stared down at the picture, his heart immersing in the sting of despair. Had he trained his Slayer for this? For so long, he had feared that Buffy did not need him anymore. Now, he saw the truth. It was he that needed her more than anything. The closest thing he had ever had to a child was slipping away from him, and he felt helpless against the forces in motion.  
  
He looked up at the dark, empty training room he was in. It felt more cold and lifeless than ever before.  
  
"Giles!" Tara's voice called from the front of the store. He snapped out of his reverie and stood up quickly, closing the drawer containing the picture. Giles walked out of the training room and into the shop to see Tara, Anya, Riley and a tall, lean African-American woman with heavy, dark, curly hair crowning her skull.  
  
She was dressed in a light satin dress of red, green, yellow and gold, with long gold earrings and gold bracelets around her arms. In essence and appearance, she was ideal stereotype of the word 'gypsy'. The strange woman stared around the Magic Box as she stepped into the room carefully as if she were floating on air. She turned to the man standing at the other end of the shop as a smile stretched her face.  
  
"Mr. Giles..." she crooned with a British accent.  
  
"Madam Rousseau," Giles replied, smiling warmly back at her. He walked across the shop approaching her, "Thank you for coming on such short notice." Anya, Riley and Tara stood back and watched the reunion as Dawn joined them with curiosity.  
  
"This is who you wanted, right?" Anya asked. "Because I think I walked my heels off going through every fortune teller in Los Angeles before we were able to track down Ms. Batty-in-the-head..."  
  
Madam Rousseau turned around and stared at Anya awkwardly as she eyed her down and declared softly, "This one is different from the others..."  
  
Riley replied, "Shine the light on _that_ revelation."  
  
"You were a demon once," Madam Rousseau added with an air of superiority. "A vengeance demon. Nothing more than... spoiled children with emotional baggage."  
  
Anya glared at her, mortally offended, "Now you listen to me—"  
  
"Anya, Madam Rousseau is one of the most renowned mediums in the western hemisphere," Giles explained, interrupting her. "We need her help and cooperation if we are to get Buffy and the others back into our dimension."  
  
"What has happened to the Slayer?" Madam Rousseau asked calmly, turning to Giles.  
  
Dawn asked, "How does she know Buffy's the Slayer?" Madam Rousseau turned towards Dawn, hearing her voice, and glared at the girl silently as the smile slowly melted off of her face.  
  
"Madam Rousseau has very strong connections to the other world," Giles replied. "Those that have passed on from this life." Madam Rousseau stared at Dawn intently, her gray eyes subtly hiding fear. Dawn noticed her strange looks and glanced away from her, breaking the eye-contact that chilled her bones.  
  
"Oh, I get it," Riley answered. "They tell her these things?"  
  
"The Slayer is absent from this world," Madam Rousseau declared, turning towards Giles again. "She is not alone. They have passed very far beyond your reach."  
  
"We knew that," Anya answered pompously, her arms crossed. "What we lack is the way to get them back."  
  
"And this is why you ask for my service?" Madam Rousseau responded. "I share no bond with them. I will not be able to contact them personally."  
  
"Yes, I understand, Madam," Giles nodded, "but your aim would not be to contact them. It would be to contact someone who has been dead for quite a while."  
  
"A name?" Madam Rousseau asked.  
  
"Sorcerer Cloutier," Giles replied. "He has traveled to the dimension where Buffy is now, and he may know the way back. Please, Madam Rousseau, will you help us?" Madam Rousseau gaped around in silence at the faces of those around her. Her eyes met again with Dawn's and then she turned back to Giles.  
  
"Jana loved you very much, Mr. Giles," the gypsy woman declared. "She has told me so herself." Giles eyes were fixated on Madam Rousseau for a few moments as he silently released the air in his lungs. He looked away from her with a hint of pain in his eyes as he nodded, forcing a smile onto his lips.

* * *

"Hey, Sam," Xander declared, walking towards the hobbit, "hand me some of that, I'm starving." Sam had been bent over a frying pan of food that sizzled over an open flame as he cooked their meal on top of the rocky mountain where the Fellowship had stopped to rest.  
  
"Here you are, Mr. Xander," Sam grinned, passing Xander a plate of food as the light of an overcast day beamed on them. "That's some of the best food in the Shire." Sam added with a slight blush, "Next to Rosie Cotton's food, of course."  
  
Xander took the plate and stared down at the hobbit as the two sat across from each other at the fire, "Rosie Cotton? Ah, so you've got a little hobbit girlfriend?"  
  
Sam looked up at him, embarrassment in his grayish-blue eyes, "Never said any such thing..."  
  
"Oh, come on, you little hobbit love machine," Xander smirked as he took a bite out of a loaf of bread. "Don't lie." Sam looked away and quickly tended to the frying pan again. "So..." Xander curiously beat around the bush, "are you two... you know, together?"  
  
"Who're you talking about, Mr. Xander?" Sam asked as he pushed around sausages.  
  
"You and Frodo," he answered. Sam turned to him with a stunned expression as Xander added, "Who do you think I'm talking about? This Rosie girl... are you, you know, dating? Is that what you call it?"  
  
"Oh," Sam breathed, still blushing at the thought of Rosie Cotton, "sometimes I don't think she knows I exist."  
  
"I know how that goes," Xander raised his eyebrows.  
  
"Forgive me for saying so, Mr. Xander," Sam glanced at him, "but I'm not sure you know much about the ways of us hobbits."  
  
"Well, I'm sure not the Zen master of dating normal girls," Xander replied. "'Cause let's look at my record... A biology-teaching praying mantis, a 500-year old mummy girl, the former witch-queen of Sunnydale High, a homicidal Slayer, and my most recent accomplishment – a 1000-plus-year-old ex-vengeance demon." Xander smiled and looked back up at Sam, "But trust me when I say you've got to grab the bull by the horns."  
  
Sam nodded his head in approval of the idea, "Bull by the horns..."  
  
"You've got to be the man," Xander squeezed his fists closed, holding them up. "The hobbit-man."  
  
"Hobbit-man," Sam nodded.  
  
"Don't let some woman push you around," Xander declared mightily. "Claim your territory and conquer!"  
  
"Xander!" Buffy called from a short distance away. "Where's that canteen of water?"  
  
"Coming, Buffy," Xander called back. Sam looked up at him with an amused grin and watched Xander obediently grab a canteen of water and rush over to her as fast as he could.  
  
Sam stood up from the fire with some food and went over to Frodo and Willow, who sat together on a rock as they watched Boromir teach Merry and Pippin how to use a sword. Aragorn sat nearby silently smoking a pipe, as Xander walked past him a few feet and handed a canteen of water to Buffy, who stood by and watched the sparring match. Spike was a few feet away, lying with his back against the top of a boulder, as he gazed up at the sky and the sun tanned him in a non-fatal way.  
  
Boromir approached Pippin first, both of them with swords in their hands, as he attacked at a moderate, steady pace. "Move your feet," Boromir instructed with a smile as Pippin carefully paid attention and blocked each of the light blows. "You look good, Pippin," Boromir grinned as he pulled back.  
  
"Thanks," Pippin smiled and turned to Merry proudly. Boromir turned to Merry and easily approached him with the same moderate speed attack. After that was done, he turned to Pippin again as they knocked swords.  
  
Boromir's blade slipped and nicked Pippin on the hand. The hobbit grimaced and snatched his hand back, shaking it out. "Sorry," Boromir exclaimed and Pippin swiftly kicked him in the shin. Merry joined in and the two hobbits playfully pushed him to the ground. "Hold him, Merry!" Pippin called as Boromir laughed aloud. "For the Shire!"  
  
Aragorn and the others let out a chuckle as they watched the three wrestle with each other on the sandy ground amongst the rocks. After a few moments, they all came to a stand as Boromir brushed himself off, laughing heartily with a wide smile.  
  
"It's so hard to remember," Pippin declared finally as he picked his sword back off of the ground. "All of these steps and positions... What you're supposed to do and when you're supposed to do it..."  
  
Buffy hesitated, and then offered, "Well, you could try playing a song in your head." Each of them turned towards her in confusion, her dim-witted comment causing them to stare at her, making her feel even more like an outsider. Even Spike lifted his head off of the ground and glared over at Buffy as she stared back at them, a bit wide-eyed, "'Cause you know, it's like-like... keeping time. And with a song in your head it... it... helps..."  
  
More silence blanketed them until Boromir finally declared, "This fighting technique has been used by my people in battles for hundreds of years."  
  
Spike gasped with sarcasm, "Oh. Do I hear a challenge?"  
  
"I have no doubt in my fighting skills," Boromir declared to Spike.  
  
"Yeah, well," Willow replied, "when it comes to battles in our world, Buffy's definitely the 'go to' girl."  
  
"Yeah," Xander nodded with a grin, "nothing can stop the Buffinator when she gets going..."  
  
"Are you saying Buffy's been on adventures, too?" Merry asked, intrigued.  
  
"Are you kidding me?" Xander answered. "Buff's got adventures coming out the wazoo."  
  
Pippin turned to Merry, confused, "What's a wazoo?"  
  
Aragorn glared at Buffy and honestly asked of her, "You're saying you know a better way to fight with a sword?"  
  
"Well," Buffy sheepishly smiled, "I don't exactly have Excalibur stored away in my closet, but, yeah. I've got a few tricks up my sleeve passed down to me from the talking book that is my watcher."  
  
Boromir turned away as he let out a small unbelieving laugh. Buffy glared at him, losing her patience. Aragorn continued to stare at her for a few moments, then retrieved his Ranger sword and held it out to Buffy.  
  
"Show us," he declared. Buffy stared at him, a bit surprised, then took Aragorn's sword and spent a moment or two examining its weight and form. Aragorn turned to Boromir, "Go on. Let's test her theory."  
  
"Go on, Boromir," Pippin grinned as the two hobbits backed out of the way, leaving a sparring space open.  
  
Boromir turned to Buffy, staring at her, and then turned to Aragorn with a clear, you-can't-possibly-be-serious expression. "You expect me to fight a mere... _child_?" Boromir asked.  
  
"Not that you have any doubt in your fighting skills," Spike declared, as he returned to his position watching the sky. Boromir glared over at him bitterly as the vampire declared with a smug smile, "Go for it, Borrie. Show the bird how it's done."  
  
Boromir turned to Buffy who already had her sword raised, ready for the challenge. The hobbits and humans watched excitedly on the sidelines as Boromir raised his sword as well. "I promise," Boromir smiled, "I'll not harm you."  
  
"No," Buffy grinned. "You really won't." With that, Boromir stepped forward and attacked swiftly, but Buffy easily blocked the blows away. They clanked swords, twisting and turning, each of them giving the other a good fight. The clinking of the swords also caught the attention of Legolas, Gandalf and Gimli, who moved over the boulder and watched the fight.  
  
Boromir swung his sword at Buffy's waist and she leapt over it swiftly, ducked under his next swing and jumped up and blocked his next blow. The fight came to a halt as Buffy stared at Boromir, asking with a grin, "Getting tired yet?"  
  
"Not in the least," Boromir answered, as he twisted his sword out of the tangle. Buffy swung to his left side and he blocked the attempt, and she quickly swung to his right, but he thwarted the blow. The two swords clashed more as Boromir slowly backed Buffy towards a boulder. Boromir mightily swung his sword at her side, but she jumped and back-flipped through the air and landed on top of the boulder.  
  
He looked up at her, having not expected the move, but replied coolly, "You're not bad."  
  
Buffy gazed down at him with a cockish glare, "Thanks. I don't usually get that from the things I fight." She quickly flipped off of the top of the rock and landed behind Boromir, facing him again in a flash. "They tend to die."  
  
Buffy attacked and a frenzy of swords crashing and blades flashing ensued. Finally, Boromir steadily backed Buffy towards the boulders again. With every attempted hit, Buffy progressively spoiled them, but suddenly lost her footing. She tripped over a rock Boromir had pushed her back to and fell backwards, but grabbed Boromir by the shoulders and brought him with her. As her back hit the ground, she used her legs to catapult Boromir over her and threw him onto the ground a few feet above her.  
  
Buffy grabbed the Ranger sword and did a backwards somersault, ending up standing over Boromir with the sword to his chest as he lay on his back and stared up at her. Buffy's theory held strong.  
  
They stayed in that position for a few seconds until Buffy removed the sword from his chest and extended her hand down to him. With hesitation, Boromir took her hand and stood up as they each caught their breath. Boromir looked up at her for a few seconds, then nodded and declared simply, "Well done."  
  
"Thanks," Buffy nodded, each of them sharing a new respect for the other. "You're all right yourself. You get a thumbs up in the book of Buffy." Spike, now paying attention again, watched the two share a half-smile as he glowered to himself, turning his head away with a scoff.

* * *

"Cloutier," Madam Rousseau declared aloud. Giles, Anya, Tara, Riley, Dawn and Madam Rousseau sat around the reference table with joined hands while the medium channeled beyond the living realm.  
  
"Sorcerer of long ago," Madam Rousseau continued, "we ask of your presence here with us. Speak to us, Cloutier. Tell us your wisdom. Provide the answers we so desperately seek. Communicate with us, Cloutier. Send us a sign." All of the lights in the magic shop dimmed suddenly for a few seconds while the ground trembled and then was at peace.  
  
"I think he just honked," Riley declared, staring around at the shop. Madam Rousseau suddenly snatched her arms back away from the others. They stared at her as her head titled down at her eyes tightly closed shut.  
  
"What is it that you seek?" Madam Rousseau asked in a French accent with a deep voice, almost deeper than her voice range would allow. "Why do you disturb my rest?"  
  
"Is she talking to us?" Dawn asked.  
  
"Cloutier?" Giles asked, glaring at the medium awkwardly. "Is your presence with us?"  
  
"It is I – he whom you seek," Madam Rousseau declared. She lifted her head and opened her eyelids to reveal her eyes, whited out completely and glowing faintly white. "Why do you call to me?"  
  
"To inquire about a world you visited once," Giles answered. "Middle Earth."  
  
"Xander is lost," Anya announced to Cloutier. "Tell us how to get him back."  
  
"This is a task not accomplished effortlessly," Cloutier answered. "For much is happening in that world. It is changing." They stared at the medium with her eyes whited out as she stared forward, seemingly looking at nothing. As she spoke, her voice changed to sound nothing like her voice, but she spoke with the voice and dialect of Cloutier. "Evil has awoken once more. The Dark Lord is restless."  
  
"Dark Lord?" Giles repeated.  
  
"His Eye sees all," Cloutier answered.  
  
"The Eye!" Tara replied, turning to the others, then back to the medium. "I-is it all fiery?"  
  
"The Eye of Sauron sees you," Cloutier announced gravely. "It sees the intruders. They tip the scales of good and evil. Nine were meant to stop him. Thirteen were sent." The gang glanced at each other as Cloutier continued, "For this alone, one shall perish. All shall suffer."  
  
"They don't have to suffer," Giles replied urgently. "We can bring Buffy and the others back."  
  
"It is too late already," Cloutier answered. "The price will be paid."  
  
"No," Riley declared, shaking his head in defiance. "They're our friends. We can't let them die. Tell us how to save them. Tell us how to bring them back. How do they find the way back?"  
  
"They do not find the way," Cloutier responded. "The way finds them. This world is now void of the light it once possessed. Equilibrium must be achieved on both sides for the way to appear."  
  
"Balance?" Giles shook his head in confusion. "How? That's impos—"  
  
"One loving heart for another," Cloutier answered, "one bearer of power, one demon, one champion."  
  
"I don't understand your answer," Giles shook his head.  
  
Cloutier replied, "Then your friends are lost forever. And both worlds will diminish into ruin."  
  
Giles breathed heavily as those words weighted down upon each of them. "How much time do we have?" he asked.  
  
"There is not much time left in either world," Cloutier asserted. "For if they do not return to this world, when the sun sets on this very day the fates of both worlds will be sealed." Terror began to creep into their hearts and minds as Cloutier declared finally, "One alone can bear the weight of this task... but it will take all to guide him."  
  
A massive blast of wind exploded through the shop as the spirit of Cloutier left them behind. 


	6. The Pass

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).  
  
Officially, the time span of the Fellowship of the Ring (don't know how long that is, but I'm guessing months) is equal to less than a day in Sunnydale time.

**6: The Pass**

The thirteen members of the Fellowship struggled as they marched through the thick snow of the Pass of Cadharas. All of them were more of less strung out in a line, Legolas at the front and Boromir at the back. In front of Boromir by several feet was Aragorn and Buffy, as they plodded together in the thick snow.  
  
"This is so hard," Willow breathed, moving slowly in front of Buffy and Aragorn.  
  
Xander stumbled along beside her, "You can definitely get a witness here..."  
  
"Your world is pretty and all," Buffy breathed. "But it pretty much blows." Ahead of Buffy, Willow and Xander, Spike let out a small scoffing laugh as he agreed with her. "I mean," Buffy sighed, "no phones."  
  
Willow added, "No lights."  
  
Spike shook his head, "No cars."  
  
Xander sang out heartily with a giddy tone, "Not a single lux-u-ry..." The Fellowship stopped and turned around to face him.  
  
Long moments passed as Spike declared, glaring at him from beneath a twisted brow, "Don't ever do that again."  
  
Xander stared back at them, embarrassment settling in, as he cleared his throat, "Let's just forget it happened."  
  
They continued on, Willow and Xander, moving ahead in the line. "So Willow really is a sorceress," Aragorn said to Buffy as the two leaders began a conversation.  
  
"She's our Glenda," Buffy nodded breathing hard as she marched through the snow as sunlight beamed through the clear sky.  
  
"Does this mean you are inhuman?" he asked.  
  
Buffy turned to him quickly, "No." She let out a small laugh, "God, no, in fact, I'm so human, I'm superhuman. A slayer, to be technical."  
  
"Slayer?" he repeated, turning to her in confusion.  
  
"She who slays nasty things with bad teeth," Buffy answered. "There's a whole big epic tale filled with apocalyptic battles between good and evil, immortal love that was never meant to be, being the only one, ancient prophecies, destiny..." She looked over at Aragorn who mused to himself with knowing eyes. "I'm guessin' you know the drill," Buffy declared with a sympathetic smile.  
  
Aragorn did not respond for a while, but then asked another question, "Does the evil the people in your dimension fight have a name?"  
  
"Well," Buffy thought to herself, "'the man' is a popular term. But the thing is, most people in my world don't know true evil exists. They think vampires and demons are all a bunch of ghost stories to tell in the night." Buffy reflected on this for a few moments, then shrugged her shoulders, "Can't really blame them, I guess. I mean, if I could go back to that day when I was in high school and my first watcher came up to me..." She let the words fade away, choosing to not hold on to what could have been.  
  
"Your watcher?" Aragorn looked over to her again.  
  
"Old watcher... he kind of died. But my second watcher and I are really close. He's like Mr. Miyagi and Morpheus rolled into one," Buffy answered, then took note of Aragorn's confused expression. "Right," Buffy sighed. "He's like my trainer."  
  
"Is he your father?" Aragorn asked.  
  
Buffy answered with a slightly smaller voice, "More so than my own."  
  
He nodded, and gazed up at the line as Xander stumbled, falling face first into the snow and Willow helped him back onto his feet. "And that one," Aragorn began with an amused smile, "he possesses no power, does he?"  
  
"Nope," Buffy grinned, staring up at her friend, "he's just Xander. But I'd be lost without him."  
  
"And the other one?" Aragorn asked as he gazed up at Spike who walked alone in front of Merry and Pippin. "What is he?"  
  
"A pain in the ass," Buffy answered. "And a vampire."  
  
"Vampire," he repeated. "I thought you said they were enemies."  
  
"They are," she replied. "Most of them, at least. In fact, I only know of one real exception. But as far as Spike goes... this evil organization put a thing in his head that prevents him from chowing down on humans. That's kind of a complicated story, see it as how it won't let him kill without a migraine, but the organization is – or was – still evil."  
  
"But it is not by his own accord that he doesn't kill?" he asked.  
  
"A big negative on that," Buffy sighed as she stared at Spike warily. "He's a good fighter, though. As long as he's on our side we've got a pretty good ally." A few moments later, Buffy added, "I can't believe I just said that..."  
  
They continued on as Buffy shivered and crossed her bare arms, trying to cover them to the best of her advantage. "You look cold," Boromir declared from behind her.  
  
Buffy stared down at her white tank top and jeans that she wore when she had arrived in this dimension and had returned to at the start of their journey. "You know in my world, I'm always dressed right," Buffy answered. "Always."  
  
"Take this," Boromir declared, and quickly handed Buffy his black cloak. "It'll keep you warm." Without making eye contact and without giving her a chance to refuse, he continued on, walking past them and moving up the line towards the front.  
  
Buffy stared down at the heavy cloak in her hands and looked up Boromir's back as he continued to walk away. She replied in confusion, "Thanks...?"  
  
Ahead of her, Buffy heard the snow shift as saw Frodo lose his footing. He fell back into the snow and tumbled several feet, rolling down the incline.  
  
"Frodo!" Aragorn called as he and Buffy moved up towards him. Willow and Boromir stopped and turned around towards the fallen hobbit as he rolled to a stop at Aragorn's feet. Buffy helped him come to a stand as Frodo brushed the snow off of his clothes. Then, with panic in his eyes, he reached for the One Ring on a silver chain around his neck, realizing that it was gone.  
  
"The Ring," he whispered.  
  
"Oh, no," Buffy declared, suddenly worried. "Tell me you didn't lose the One Ring—"  
  
He words were cut off as she, Aragorn and Frodo looked ahead of them up the incline and watched Boromir pick the chain out of the snow. Willow slowly stepped away from Boromir, her eyes dead on him, as he stared deeply into the golden Ring. He dangled it before his eyes as it slowly tempted him.  
  
"Boromir," Aragorn declared, watching him intently. Gandalf slowly turned around, his staff in hand, and he also noticed that Boromir had the Ring.  
  
"It is a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt..." Boromir softly spoke, entranced by the Ring, "...over so small a thing." Willow's eyes narrowed as a look of worry came across her face. Her breaths became small pants as she shot her eyes towards Buffy. Buffy caught her glance and looked back at Boromir as he added, "Such a little thing..."  
  
"Boromir!" Aragorn's voice declared warningly as Boromir reached for the Ring. He instantly snapped out of his trance and looked up the Ranger.  
  
Buffy slowly responded, "Step away from the Ring, buddy."  
  
"Give the Ring to Frodo," Aragorn told him calmly.  
  
Boromir glanced down at Frodo's fearfully timid expression and stepped towards him. "As you wish," he answered and handed the Ring back to the hobbit. Frodo snatched it quickly as Boromir grinned lightheartedly, "I care not." Buffy stared at him carefully as the whistling wind blew her blonde curls across her face. Aragorn held the same gaze as Boromir playfully rubbed Frodo's hair, shaking out pieces of snow. He turned away and continued up the path as Frodo watched him leave nervously.  
  
Boromir walked past Willow eventually as she turned around and followed him with her determined eyes. In the palm of her hand was a small tongue of flame, and she released the magic as he passed her by.  
  
"That's it!" Xander declared with a 'eureka' tone. Buffy, Frodo, Willow and Aragorn looked up ahead at Xander as he turned around, facing Buffy and the others. "The Elrond guy – I swear he looked like that dude from The Matrix!"

* * *

At the very top of the tower of Isengard, Sarumon stood facing towards the Pass of Cadharas while his minions of evil slaved away beneath him. Behind the tower of Isengard, the Eye of Sauron watched intently from Mordor, facing the same pass.  
  
"Warriors from another dimension," Sarumon declared. "Is that how you plan to stop me, Gandalf?" A smile stretched across the wizard's face, "Very well. If you angle the scales, then so shall I..."  
  
The fiery Eye of Sauron faced towards the mountains, burning through the dark night sky. The voice of Sauron hissed and rang in the ears of all in Isengard, _"Slayer..."_

* * *

"I'm sorry," Madam Rousseau announced as she stood up from the reference table, "I cannot help you any longer."  
  
"Madam Rousseau," Giles jumped to his feet, "please, you must—"  
  
"I apologize, Mr. Giles," she declared, cutting him off. "But you do not understand what you have gotten yourself in to." She turned to the others sitting at the table, "The Dark Lord knows you are trying to contact your friends and he will do everything in his power to try and stop you."  
  
"Why?" Dawn whined. "What did we ever do to him?"  
  
"You are intruding on his apocalypse," she answered.  
  
Riley added, "I guess the bad guys don't really appreciate it when that happens."  
  
"How do you know these things, Madam Rousseau?" Giles asked.  
  
"It is what Cloutier told me," she answered. "He told me that the Dark Lord is incorporeal in that world. The presence of the Slayer is pushing the scales in the favor of good."  
  
"Well," Tara turned to the others, "th-that's a good thing, right?"

"Good, yes," Madam Rousseau turned to her, and then announced gravely. "Until Sauron pushes back."  
  
Giles looked up with alarm in his eyes and declared fearfully, "He will try to make himself corporeal again."

* * *

Wind and snow blew fiercely as the Fellowship desperately battled against the powerful gusts, rounding the sharp, jagged face of a mountain. The wind violently whipped past them as if trying to push them down, but they knew one slip meant certain death.  
  
"Hey, Buffy!" Xander called, shouting over the howling of the wind. "From now on, remind me not to let you plan any future Scooby vacations." He continued to push on against the force of the air stream and snow.  
  
Spike, in his black shirt, black jeans and duster jacket, was up to his waist in snow, as was most of the Fellowship, save for one. "I can't take much more of this!" Spike shouted out.  
  
"Do not slow your pace," Aragorn ordered, shouting over the wind as he followed Buffy at the back of the line. Buffy held tightly to Frodo as they rounded the mountain. "We cannot stop," the Ranger declared.  
  
"Oh, shove off!" Spike barked back. "I've got snow in places where snow shouldn't be and I can't feel the lower half of my body!" He turned back to him and added, "And I'm from bloody England!" He continued his rant as he looked over at Legolas, stepping effortlessly around on top of the snow. "Meanwhile, the Keebler Elf is prancing around the snow like some magnificent poof!" Legolas turned towards Spike and glared at him with his sharp, blue eyes.  
  
"We haven't time for your grievances," Boromir said to Spike, irritated. "Keep moving!"  
  
"Well – listen to the Ponce who would be _Queen_," Spike challenged and then hollered at him. "Tell me, mate – could you be any more annoying?"  
  
"You cannot address him in that manner," Aragorn declared to Spike, eyeing him angrily.  
  
Spike turned around and faced Aragorn, "Could _he_ be any more annoying?"  
  
"Spike!" Buffy snapped, fed up. She shouted over the wind, "Move or I'll move you!" Spike turned away, shaking his head and continued up the trail in silence.  
  
Frodo looked up at Buffy with something of a smile, "Do you always frighten men like that?"  
  
"It happens," Buffy shrugged. "Watch your step."  
  
"I'm telling you, Buff," Xander said to her as he approached her, "we shouldn't have brought Nosferatu with us."  
  
Buffy shook her head, "If he complains again, I'll just hit him with something—"  
  
"That's not what I mean," Xander replied seriously. "You saw the way he clocked those elves back when we first got here. His chip only works on humans."  
  
"I don't think Legos-less is going to have a problem," Buffy responded.  
  
"Legolas," Xander corrected. "And it's not him I'm worried about. I just don't want Spike to get the hankerin' for a hobbit happy meal anytime soon."  
  
"Don't worry," Buffy declared. "We've got plenty of good elf and non-elf eyes keeping watch on them. And I've practically got Frodo on a leash..."  
  
"Where is he now?" Xander asked.  
  
Buffy paused and glared around to see the Ring-bearing hobbit nowhere in sight. "Damn," Buffy kicked herself. "We really should put a bell on him."  
  
"Frodo!" Gandalf called out.  
  
"Mr. Frodo!" Sam shouted. Frodo was walking beside them when the ice beneath his hairy bare feet gave way. He hollered as he fell backwards off of the edge of the mountain and began a fatal freefall. He only fell a couple of feet, however, when he froze in midair and dangled there with his back straight.  
  
Willow suddenly reached out for the hobbit, leaning over the edge of the cliff herself and she used her powers to float him towards her. "That usually only works with a pencil," Buffy declared and watched Willow grasp Frodo's shirt at his chest, pulling him back on the ground.  
  
Willow stopped and stared down at her closed palm, gripping his shirt. Inside of her hand enclosed in the shirt, she could hear the Ring of Power softly whisper.  
  
"A fell voice is in the air," Legolas announced as he stood atop a rock facing Isengard.  
  
The wind whistled louder as Willow continued to hold onto Frodo's shirt. "It's Sarumon!" Gandalf shouted as several boulders from above came crashing down around them.  
  
"What?" Xander hollered back. "How? I thought he was only a big Eye!"  
  
"That's Sauron!" Boromir answered loudly.  
  
"Then who's Sarumon?" he asked. "The other wizard?"  
  
"Yes!" the twelve other members of the Fellowship declared in unison.  
  
"Those two names are way too similar!" Xander declared. "It's like they're trying to confuse me! How 'bout we rename somebody? I'm all for 'the Eye of Felix'!"  
  
"Willow?" Merry called, as the four hobbits watched the witch continue to grasp onto Frodo's shirt. "What's wrong?" Frodo glared up at her to see her eyes widen and go black with Dark Magic. Willow suddenly pulled Frodo over the edge and pushed him back into his friends, releasing her grip.  
  
The mountain they were on began to tremble as they struggled to keep their footing. "He's trying to bring down the mountain!" Aragorn called out. Gandalf was facing towards Isengard, still waist deep in snow, and shouted a spell back in his deep, booming voice.  
  
Willow seemed to be in a determined trance as she stepped out of her hole and walked on top of the snow, striding to the edge of the mountain. She stepped slowly as if she were completely unaware of the happenings around her.  
  
"Will!" Xander called out to her, noticing her while the others tried to hold on to the mountain. "What are you doing?"  
  
Willow did not acknowledge him as she walked to the edge of a rock facing Isengard. A few feet away, Gandalf stopped speaking and turned to the witch beside him, watching as her chin-length, curly hair suddenly turned from red to black.  
  
Willow opened her mouth and an unholy scream rang out from it. The others suddenly covered their ears in pain, her high-pitched, inhuman howl tearing at their minds. The mountain continued to tremble as she screamed her horrifying cry.

* * *

The sound traveled swiftly through the mountains, echoing all the way back to Isengard, where Sarumon was still on top of his tower shouting his spells to the wind. The screech hit him like a ton of bricks as he dropped his staff on the ground and fell backwards, holding his ears in pain. The orcs below him began to shriek and howl, adding to the horrendous noise of unknown origin.

* * *

The snow of the mountain above them suddenly gave way and a massive slab of it crashed down upon them. The scream faded off and the Fellowship could hear no more as they were buried in snow. The only sound left was the fierce howl of the wind.  
  
Slowly, the snow in a certain patch started to melt. Willow stuck her hand through the snow, her arm glowing crimson like the embers in a fire, and her red-haired head popped out of the snow. When she pulled her whole body out, she glared around at the blanket of snow and her arm stopped glowing. "Tabesco," she whispered and held out her right hand. The top layer of snow glowed crimson for a second, then melted away.  
  
Heads and hands began to emerge as the rest of the Fellowship pulled themselves out of the snow. "What was that, Red?" Spike asked, shocked as he spat snow out of his mouth.  
  
"Sorry," she answered, "I really wanted him to shut up."  
  
"We must get off the mountain!" Boromir called out to Gandalf. "Make for the Gap of Rohan and take the west road to my city!"  
  
"The Gap of Rohan takes us too close to Isengard!" Aragorn argued.  
  
"We cannot pass over a mountain," Gimli shouted back. "Let us go under it. Let us go through the Mines of Moria." The Fellowship turned to Gandalf and saw the fear set deeply into his eyes.  
  
After a while, Gandalf declared, "Let the Ring-bearer decide."  
  
Frodo gazed around, his eyes wide, as Spike nodded, "That'd be you, prawn."  
  
Frodo breathed nervously and declared, "We will go through the mines." 


	7. Darkness

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).

**7: Darkness**

"So no more gypsy lady?" Anya asked, not as happy about that as she imagined she would be. "She's not gonna help us?"  
  
"I'm afraid not," Giles shook his head. They stood in the Magic Box, staring at one another worriedly. "Well, we can't just stand here," Giles announced. "Time is not on our side at the moment."  
  
"Sunset," Dawn remembered. "The sun sets a little after seven."

Giles stared down anxiously at his watch, "It's 2:25 in the afternoon now."  
  
"Did anybody understand what he meant?" Tara asked. "One loving heart for another, one bearer of power, one demon, one champion?"  
  
"Cryptic messages," Riley nodded. "God, I just love cryptic messages."  
  
"Maybe he was talking about us," Dawn suggested. Giles turned to her as she explained, "Four people...?"  
  
"One with a loving heart," Giles replied.  
  
"Like Xander's!" Anya declared.  
  
"Like Giles'," Tara added.  
  
"One bearer of power," Giles remembered.  
  
"A witch!" Dawn exclaimed. "Tara's the other witch."  
  
"One demon," Riley thought to himself, "talking about Spike, which means—"  
  
"I'm the most qualified of the group," Anya answered.  
  
"One champion," Dawn declared. "That would be Riley." Riley turned to Dawn and smiled graciously at her.  
  
"So that's what it means?" Tara asked.  
  
"What else could it mean?" Giles replied. "It's our only hope."  
  
"Okay, now we've got the people to balance the power," Anya sighed. "How do we get the portal open?"  
  
Giles thought to himself for a few moments, then declared, "Cloutier's trance."  
  
"What?" Tara exclaimed. "Bu-but Buffy tried that and that's how she ended up there in the first place."  
  
"She's right, Giles," Anya nervously answered. "Whatever walks back through that portal might not be Buffy."  
  
"If it works, it should be Buffy," he responded. "Besides, we've got no other chance and we're running out of time. We must at least try. Anya, set up the spell. We shall begin immediately."

* * *

"I haven't had a bloody bite to eat in days," Spike declared as the Fellowship continued on their journey. They walked through the dark and misty borders of Moria as they approached the entrance to the mines.  
  
"Keep it to yourself, fang boy," Xander declared, not feeling sorry for him. "There were plenty of little, furry creatures running around. Don't they have blood?"  
  
"'_Were_,'" Spike repeated, "as in past tense. There hasn't been much since we hit the mountains." Spike gazed around at the swampy land they were near and the black water pond just a few feet away. "I don't really wanna know what lives here."  
  
"We're here," Gimli declared with a grin. "Moria." Buffy and the others looked around the dark, creepy place as uncanny sounds called from nearby.  
  
"Guess the rent must be low," Spike declared.  
  
Gandalf approached the side of the mountain and ran his hands over a grey, granite wall. "Well, let's see," he said to himself, examining the wall carefully. "Ithildin. It mirrors only starlight and moonlight." Gandalf turned towards the dark, night sky above their heads to see the full moon peeked its glowing face out from behind the clouds.  
  
"Well, that was kinda convenient," Willow whispered to Buffy as the area around them was illuminated with moonlight. They turned back towards the blank wall to see a glowing archway with strange symbols appear in the stone.  
  
They watched it with enchantment as the doorway glowed a beautiful white light. Gandalf used his staff as a pointed and read aloud to them all, "It reads, 'Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter.'"  
  
"Cryptic messages," Buffy sighed as she forced a smile on her face. "God, I just love cryptic messages."  
  
"What does it mean?" Merry asked.  
  
"It's simple, really," Gandalf answered with a shrug. "If you are a friend, you speak the password and the doors will open." Gandalf put the top of his staff to the wall and declared with a mighty voice, "Annon Edhellen edro hi ammen!"  
  
Nothing happened. Spike gasped, "Oh, such power..." With a sigh, Buffy rolled her eyes as Gandalf began to push on the door, but it didn't give way. Buffy turned around towards the watery land behind her. The dark pond was as still as glass, yet gave her unsettling feelings deep in her soul.

* * *

Frodo, Buffy and Willow sat down on a rock by the pond as Gandalf continued to try every Elfish password he could think of. Xander, Sam, Aragorn and Boromir watched patiently from afar while Merry and Pippin tossed rocks into the pond, Spike sitting nearby. Legolas and Gimli quietly kept watch at the water's edge, turning back once and a while toward Gandalf.  
  
"Oh, it's no use," Gandalf declared, finally turning away from the wall. He walked over and sat down next to Frodo, Willow and Buffy.  
  
"Don't feel bad," Willow told him. "We get lots of riddles all the time in our world." She thought to herself, "'What happens to planes when they pass the Bermuda Triangle?' 'What happened in Roswell in the 40's?' 'Why did the chicken cross the road?'"  
  
"That's it," Frodo declared, looking up at the wall. "It's a riddle." He stood up and walked up to the doorway and asked, "What's the Elfish word for friend?"  
  
Gandalf declared, "Mellon." With a rumble, the thick doors slowly opened up as the members of the Fellowship came to a stand. They hesitantly and carefully walked in through the doorway into the darkness.  
  
"Tell me you've got something to eat in here," Spike declared, turning to Gimli.  
  
The dwarf smiled heartily, "Soon you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the dwarves. Roaring fires, malt beer, ripe meat off the bone!"  
  
"Don't get too excited, Spike," Xander responded. "Or we'll have to have vampire-on-a-stick." Spike glared at him and then ignored the comment.  
  
"This, my friend, is the home of my cousin Balin," Gimli announced proudly, then laughed, "and they call it a mine..."  
  
Spike stopped in his path, "Does anyone else smell that?"  
  
"Please," Xander shook his head, "if you're still complaining about food—"  
  
"That's not exactly what I had in mind," Spike cut him off as he warily gazed around the darkened area. "But I do smell blood." Buffy carefully stepped through the darkness, her foot coming down on a solid object that cracked beneath it. She quickly lifted her leg and glared down at the floor.  
  
"This is no mine," Boromir nervously declared, staring down at Buffy's foot. "It's a tomb!" The skeleton of dwarf laid at her feet. The rest of the Fellowship glanced around to notice the dark room made of stone was littered with small-size skeletons.  
  
"They have been slaughtered!" Legolas announced.  
  
Xander turned towards Legolas with a confused look on his face, "Well, you're just a regular Jerry Seinfeld, aren't you?"  
  
"Okay," Willow breathed, glaring around at the corpses, "I was really hoping, but I don't think this is Disney World."  
  
"No!" Gimli cried out in agony as he rushed around the room, glaring at the deceased bodies of his race and family. Buffy reached down at pulled a thin arrow out of the skull of the dwarf skeleton, holding it up in the dim light.  
  
Legolas took the arrow from her, gazing down at it and declared, "Goblins!" He tossed down the goblin arrow and drew one of his own, taking out his bow and keeping it at the ready. Aragorn and Boromir both drew their swords while Buffy reached down and took a sword off of a skeleton. Spike, Willow and Xander looked around cautiously while the hobbits backed away out of the doorway.  
  
"We make for the Gap of Rohan," Boromir decreed. "We should never have come here."  
  
"Strider!" Sam shouted, and Aragorn turned around quickly. Buffy and Spike also turned towards the door where three of the hobbits were desperately tugging on Frodo. A long, snake-like tentacle reached out of the murky pond and was wrapped around his leg, dragging him closer to the water.  
  
"Get off of him!" Sam declared, drawing a small sword and hacking at the tentacle. It quickly retreated back into the water and they breathed a sigh of relief as his arm disappeared. A second later, not one, but many black, scaly tentacles ripped out of the water and knocked Sam, Merry and Pippin back to the ground. The tentacles enclosed around Frodo's legs as it yanked him off of the ground and dangled him easily above the water.  
  
Legolas shot an arrow at one of the tentacles, but it was of no use. Aragorn desperately rushed to the edge of the water and swung his sword left and right, battling three tentacles at once. Frodo dangled upside down in the air as he hollered for help.  
  
Spike turned to his right to see Merry and Pippin chunking rocks at the tentacles. Suddenly, a thick, long tentacle reached out towards the two hobbits, both of them oblivious to it. In a flash, Spike leapt over a rock as the tentacle roped itself around Merry and Pippin, constricting them tightly. Spike grabbed an arm on each hobbit and with his vampire strength he yanked them out of the slippery hold.  
  
The hobbits landed safely on the ground and looked up to see the same tentacle wrap itself around Spike as it lifted the vampire in the air. "Spike!" Pippin called out, as he and Merry watched helplessly.  
  
Frodo was moved even further away from the shore, still hanging in midair. A gigantic, black, twisted squid head emerged from the black water. Frodo stared down at it in terror. "Frodo!" Buffy called as she dove into the water while Aragorn continued to hack away at the tentacles. He gazed down powerlessly as a massive set of jaws rimmed with sharp, dagger-like teeth opened wide and roared horribly.  
  
"Holy Squidward!" Xander shouted as he stood at the water's edge, staring at the monstrous creature in abject horror. "That's some Alien shi—!" He was cut off by one of the tentacles as he was knocked away towards the wall.  
  
Spike was being waved back and forth through the air, the tentacle wrapping around his stomach like an anaconda. He suddenly vamped out and bit down on the tentacle with all of his might. The creature howled in pain and the tentacle released the vampire back down into the water.  
  
In the water, Buffy swam to one of the tentacles and latched on as it flung her through the air. She let go of the tentacle and landed on top of the creature's head. With a mighty thrust, she jabbed the sword down into the skull of the octopus-like monster and it let out a screeching cry. The tentacle holding on to Frodo suddenly released him and he fell down into the arms of Aragorn, standing in the water below.  
  
Buffy leapt off of the head of the octopus, leaving the sword still in its skull, and crashed down into the water. She, Spike and Aragorn carrying Frodo ran out of the water, towards the doors of the cave.  
  
"Into the mines!" Gandalf shouted. Boromir pulled Xander back to his feet as the Fellowship rushed into the mines. The squid, still with the sword in its head, reached all of its available tentacles out towards the Fellowship, following them into the darkness. It reared its spider-like body out of the water as the tentacles gripped mountain face.  
  
As the Fellowship entered the mines, they could feel the dark, smelly place start to tremble and shake as the walls and roof of the foyer to the caves came crashing down behind them. While running, Boromir stumbled and crashed down to the ground. Buffy stopped, seeing him fall and turned around, running full speed towards him while the humongous boulders threatened to crush them both.  
  
She grabbed his arm and pulled him up with ease. He was lifted to his feet with superhuman strength as she dragged him the rest of the way into the mines. The last of the rocks of the roof and walls collapsed behind them, just as they passed down the halls. The Fellowship stopped and gazed back at the remains of the moonlight as it was sealed out by the stones.  
  
Pitch darkness blanketed them.

* * *

Riley, Anya, Giles and Tara were enclosed in the Magic Box as they each sat on the floor in the back of the store. Lighted incense filled their noses and candles burned around them as they sat in a circle, each of them facing outwards.  
  
"Close your mind to the world," Giles instructed, with his back to the rest of the group. His eyes were closed tightly and his glasses removed as he placed his hands on his knees. "Remove all fear... remove all doubt."  
  
Each of them breathed deeply together as they cleared their minds. They were all becoming one. One heart, one power, one demon and one champion. They slowly inhaled and exhaled, feeling their breaths shorten each time and their hearts little-by-little begin to speed up.

* * *

"Okay..." Xander's fearful voice called aloud. "Need lights... Need lights now..." A bright, bluish light suddenly appeared from the top of Gandalf staff. The Fellowship turned to Xander who stood near a wall with his arms wrapped tightly around Buffy.  
  
"Xander," Buffy declared. "Need air..." Quickly, he released his grip on her and backed away a bit, returning to his calm, relaxed appearance.  
  
"Just making sure you were okay, Buff," Xander explained.  
  
"My hero," Buffy looked at him as she shook her head.  
  
"Hey," Willow breathed, staring at Gandalf staff, "I didn't know you could do that!" She gazed in envy at the bright glow from the top, "I want a night light, too. I've got to get me one of those..."  
  
"Definitely cooler than a Mag-Lite," Buffy agreed.  
  
"We now have but one choice," Gandalf announced. "We must face the long dark of Moria." Gandalf began to walk past them, instructing them as he moved, "Be on your guard. There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world."  
  
With tired sighs, the Scoobies followed the people of Middle Earth up a nearly destroyed flight of stairs. "Quietly, now," Gandalf added, "it's a four-day journey to the other side."

* * *

Dawn Summers paced nervously around the hallways upstairs in her home. She peeked into her room, then peeked downstairs and then went back to pacing. Dawn stopped after a few minutes and quietly stood in the hallway, gazing at Buffy's door.  
  
Slowly and carefully, she twisted the knob of Buffy's bedroom and went inside. Dawn stood in the doorway and gazed around at the white room on the top floor of the Summers home. Wearily, she let out a breath of air and closed the door behind her, standing alone in her big sister's room.  
  
Dawn gazed down at the floor where burned out incense and candles were still sitting. She felt the slightest hint of guilt as she looked at the spell materials. She shouldn't have irritated Buffy so much. She shouldn't have taken credit for fixing their mother breakfast when it really was Buffy's hard work all along.  
  
Was it her fault that her sister was gone? Was this her punishment for being so obtuse with her? _That's silly,_ Dawn thought to herself. _It's Buffy's fault for messing around with stupid magic. _If she'd just stayed with Dawn then things would be better.  
  
That last thought rang in her mind as she pondered over it. Dawn hadn't realized until then, but she missed her sister. Did she really want her approval that much? Did Buffy's opinion really matter to her?  
  
Dawn was quickly overcome with worry and sorrow. What if she never got the chance to talk to Buffy? What if something bad happened to her? What if she died...?  
  
She blocked it out of her mind, the thought being too horrifying for her to imagine. Though Dawn didn't like to admit it, she was just a kid. She was far too young to fix things. How could she ever make it on her own? Then it occurred to her that she wouldn't be on her own. Joyce would still be there.Or would she?  
  
_Buffy..._ Dawn thought to herself. _Please... please come back. I need you... come back... Oh, Riley... Giles... Tara, Anya... please bring them back—_  
  
Her thoughts were abruptly cut off. The silence in the room was louder than a freight train as Dawn stared at Buffy's vanity chest. On top of it was a necklace holder that she'd seen – and tried things off of – at least a million times before. But this time, something caught her eye.  
  
A silver cross necklace.

* * *

The Fellowship rested in a giant cavern deep inside the mines. Gandalf sat by himself on a boulder several feet away from the rest of them as he smoked a pipe and held his staff. "Are we lost?" Pippin whispered to Merry, as he sat with the rest of them.  
  
"No," his friend answered. "Gandalf's thinking."  
  
"I think we're lost," he replied.  
  
"We're not," Merry snipped.  
  
Seconds passed, then Pippin whispered, "Merry?"  
  
"What?" Merry responded, irritated.  
  
"I'm hungry," he answered.  
  
Spike sat next to them and jumped up hastily, as he grabbed his duster jacket, putting it on and began to walk away from them. "Spike," Buffy stood up as she and Willow moved towards them, "where the hell are you going?"  
  
Spike turned around towards her, "Home."  
  
"Uh, how do you plan to do that?" Xander asked, as they walked passed him. "'Cause I've heard horrible things about the flight service around here..."  
  
"I don't know," Spike snapped. "But I'm sure as hell not stayin' here. I'm gettin' out of this place one way or another."  
  
"Spike? Not to dampen your daylight," Willow apologetically responded, "but how exactly do you think you're going to find a way home? We're not exactly in Candyland..."  
  
"I'll send you all a postcard when I get back telling you how," Spike glared at her, then turned around and began to march off. Buffy turned to Willow and Xander and then followed him.  
  
"Get real, Spike," Buffy caught up with him as the two of them walked along, "you don't know any more about this dimension than we do. The best thing for us is to stick with people that know their way around."  
  
"The best thing for us," Spike turned to her angrily, "was to stay right where we bloody were and not come on this poxy expedition to begin with!"  
"We can't just abandon them," Buffy answered. "They're depending on us to help them—"  
  
"Look, Slayer," he snapped back in a low whisper, "I didn't want to come on the bloody quest for the un-holy grail in the first place! We've been walking for weeks and I'm damn tired!"  
  
Buffy began, "We all are—"  
  
"What's wrong with you?" Spike exclaimed. "Don't you see? We're not even supposed to be here! I'm supposed to be home watchin' the telly, eatin' my meals, doin' what I'm supposed to do. You're supposed to be slaying evil and banging Captain Cardboard! Don't you miss any of that the least bit?"  
  
"Of course I do!" Buffy declared. "I mean... not the banging – well, I do, but... but I—"  
  
"We've wasted too much time already," Spike cut her off, shaking his head. "We may not even be able to get home as it is."  
  
"I know that," Buffy snapped and a long silence passed between them. "But it's obviously harder than just a short stroll to get back—"  
  
"That's what stoppin' you, is it?" Spike abruptly asked, tired of her excuses. "Or is it that part of you doesn't want to go back?"  
  
Buffy glared up at him in silence with her green eyes blazing. "Go," she spat, her voice dripping with lividness.  
  
"Don't mind if I do," Spike declared back to her, then turned around and marched out of sight. Buffy stood back and watched him go with anger into his eyes. After he was gone for good, she turned back, taking a deep breath and went to check on the rest of them.  
  
Buffy slowly and tiredly walked up to Frodo, who sat on the edge of a rock, staring down into the rest of the deep, rocky cavern below. "Hey," she softly smiled, "how're you holding up?"  
  
"I'm fine," he nodded to her, "thank you." Buffy nodded back in reply as she sat down beside him and looked out in the direction that he was looking. Frodo turned to her after a small while had passed and asked, "May I ask you something?"  
  
"Sure," Buffy answered, looking down at him. "What's up?"  
  
"I've heard Merry, Pippin and Sam telling you lots about our home," Frodo began, "but I haven't heard much about your home. Not much that I can understand, anyway."  
  
Buffy thought to herself and then replied, "Well... it's nice in some places. Not as pretty as your world, I don't think. Except maybe in New Zealand. And there are some hellish places in our world where blood-sucking demons strive for power. It's called Hollywood." Buffy smiled, adding with a slower, more melancholy tone, "But there are things that make up for that sort of stuff. Hamburgers. Television. Most of all, your family."  
  
"What's your family like?" Frodo asked.  
  
"Well," Buffy began with a smile, "there's my mom, first of all. She wasn't so keen on the idea of me being a Slayer at first, but she came around. Then there's my boyfriend, who's... thankfully... perfectly normal. There's my watcher, Giles, he kinda plays the father figure. My other friends – Tara, who's always really nice, and Anya, who's... tolerable. Oh, and then there's my little sister. She's not so tolerable."  
  
"What is she like?" Frodo asked with fascination. "Is she a Slayer like you?"  
  
"Thank God no," Buffy answered. "In fact, if Dawn were a Slayer, she'd probably kill us all. I mean, at least Faith meant to do it..."  
  
"I never had a sibling, or much of a family," Frodo thought aloud, "but everyone always said I clung to Uncle Bilbo like the father I never had. Maybe... Dawn just wants to be a part of your life." Frodo smiled with a bit of pain as he remembered, "I wonder if I ever bothered him... I just always looked up to him so much. I always wanted to be with him. I wanted him to tell me stories about his life and the adventures he's been on."  
  
Buffy turned to him and started to feel guilty about the way she'd treated Dawn. Frodo continued to reminisce, "No matter what happens to me, I'll always have those memories."  
  
Buffy nodded and hesitantly replied, "I guess I kind of am too hard on Dawn." Buffy immersed herself in thought, "Maybe it's the fact that I haven't seen her in so long, but... I kinda miss her..."  
  
A cracking noise sounded out from the cavern below them, as Buffy shot her eyes down in the darkness. "Did you hear that?" she asked.  
  
Frodo stared down at the cavern and a look of worry came across his face. "Come quickly," Frodo whispered to Buffy and they moved away from the edge. Buffy followed Frodo up to Gandalf as Frodo declared, "There's something down there..."  
  
"It's Gollum," Gandalf declared, staring out into the darkness.  
  
Buffy turned to him, "Who-um?"  
  
"Gollum," Frodo whispered in surprise, "he had the ring before Bilbo found it."  
  
"He's been following us for three days," Gandalf added.  
  
"He escaped the dungeons of Barad-dûr?" Frodo exclaimed.  
  
"Escaped," Gandalf nodded, then turned to them, "or set loose."  
  
Buffy turned to Gandalf, "What kind of threat are we talking about? Is he one of those... fork things?"  
  
"_Orcs_," Gandalf corrected. "And no. The Ring turned him into a terrible creature. He both hates and loves the Ring and will do anything for it."  
  
Frodo turned back towards the cavern, "It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance."  
  
"Pity?" Gandalf turned to him in surprise. "It's a pity that stayed his hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo?" Frodo turned to Gandalf with a hint of shame in his eyes. "Do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment," Gandalf declared. "Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of the Ring."  
  
Frodo continued to stare into the darkness and Buffy recognized the same emotions that she had felt in her life as well. "I wish the Ring had never come to me," Frodo announced softly. "I wish none of this had happened."  
  
Gandalf stared at Frodo, then looked up at Buffy, taking note of the fact that she was also listening. "So do all that come to see such times," Gandalf replied. "But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work, Frodo, besides the will of evil."  
  
"So you're saying Frodo was supposed to get the Ring?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Yes," Gandalf nodded, "it was his destiny. I imagine you know about that." Buffy smiled warmly at him as Gandalf turned towards a direction in the cavern. "That way," Gandalf announced to them all.  
  
"He's remembered!" Merry cheered.  
  
"No," Gandalf replied, "but the air doesn't smell so foul here. If in doubt, Meriadoc, always follow your nose."  
  
The Fellowship began to move out as Aragorn gazed around, then approached Buffy. "Spike," he asked, "where is he?"  
  
Buffy turned to him, and then looked down the tunnel where he had ventured off into, "He's not coming with us."

* * *

"Concentrate very carefully," Giles decreed as they held their positions carefully. "Clear your mind completely..." Giles, Anya, Riley and Tara breathed as one and their hearts beat as one. "Become one heart," Giles softly whispered, "become one power, become one demon and become one champion."  
  
The world fell into place around them and everything seemed peaceful and still. Their minds had finally become one and they were suddenly unaware of their location and what was going on around them. They were one.  
  
Though they didn't feel it, the wooden floorboards beneath them slowly began to tremble.

* * *

The Fellowship traveled down a great hall of darkness, Gandalf's staff leading the way. Behind him only a few feet, was Gimli as they rounded another massive pillar. Gimli stopped in his tracks and gazed at an open doorway with two thick wooden doors. More dwarf skeletons littered the pathway that led in through the doorway.  
  
"No..." Gimli breathed, his heart beginning to ache. He took off in a mad dash for the doorway, passing the skeletons by.  
  
"Gimli," Gandalf called after him. Buffy, Willow and Xander rushed past Gandalf, the rest of the Fellowship following behind them, as they all followed Gimli into the large, stone room.  
  
"No!" Gimli cried out, as he entered and gazed around. Buffy came to the doorway and stopped, staring around at frightfully destroyed room covered in bones, boulders and other wreckage. The great room reminded her very much of the mausoleums in Sunnydale, save for the size of this room that she was in.  
  
Buffy turned to the center of the room to see a ray of blue sunlight, shining down from a hole on a rectangular, stone box. Gimli kneeled down beside it, holding his axe at his side as he wept in sorrow. She entered the room and understood finally that she was in a mausoleum after all.  
  
Willow walked up to the dusty, stone sarcophagus bathed in light and gazed down at the engraved epitaph written in some language that looked similar to a cross between Greek and Phoenician.  
  
Gandalf approached the sarcophagus from the other side and read the epitaph aloud, "'Here lies Balin... son of Fundin... Lord of Moria.'" The rest of the Fellowship entered the room, staring around at the massive destruction of the pillars and balconies on every side. "He is dead then," Gandalf replied sadly. "It is as I have feared."  
  
Gandalf removed his pointed hat and handed it to Pippin, along with his staff. He knelt down and pulled a thick, dirt-covered book from the arms of a skeleton, picking it up and gazing down at the foreign writing inside.  
  
"We must move on," Legolas whispered to Aragorn. "We cannot linger."  
  
Buffy backed up towards a corner of the room where Willow and Xander were standing next to a well covered in skeletal remains. Willow warily peered down into the darkness of the well, "If you were to go down there, I wonder if you'd meet the nasty that did all of this..."  
  
Buffy also peered down the well with the same cautious stare, "Either that or you'd die in seven days."

* * *

Spike lethargically plodded along, passing through limestone peaks and fallen pillars as he made his way through the mines. He stopped suddenly, looked up and smelled the air around him. The scents in the air led his eyes to the dark tunnel he was about to enter. His expression of intrigue slowly melted away, transforming into an expression of fear.  
  
He whispered to himself, "Bloody hell..."

* * *

"'They have taken the bridge and the second hall,'" Gandalf read aloud to the rest of the Fellowship as he stared down at the thick book in his hands. Gimli looked up from the tomb of his cousin towards Gandalf as Boromir placed a hand on his shoulder. "'We have barred the gates... but cannot hold them for long.'"  
  
Terror, like an inexorable virus, gradually began to grip them all as Gandalf continued to read the last words of the souls trapped in the room. "'The ground shakes,'" Gandalf read, as Buffy glanced over to Willow and then to Xander. "'Drums... drums in the deep.'"  
  
Pippin gazed around the room in fear as he held Gandalf's staff and hat. He slowly backed away towards Xander, Buffy and Willow, who stood near the well. The rest of the hobbits stood together at the side of the room, while Legolas stood next to Aragorn near the doorway and Boromir, Gimli and Gandalf stood near the sarcophagus in the center of the room.  
  
Gandalf turned the crisp page, "'We cannot get out. A Shadow moves in the dark. We cannot get out...'" Gandalf looked up at the rest of them as he read the last, chilling line, "'They are coming..."  
  
Pippin suddenly felt the hard rock of the well hit his back and turned around quickly, knocking the iron-helmeted skull of a skeleton. The skull plummeted down the well, hitting the sides, as Gandalf and the others turned around towards Pippin. He stared at their critical faces in shame as they listened to the skull fall, making a tremendous amount of noise as it crashed all the way down to the bottom.  
  
Gandalf incredulously glared at him, closing the book in his hands hastily. Silence blanketed them finally as they listened to the clanking stop. "Don't worry," Xander whispered, reaching for Pippin to pat him on the shoulder, "it could've been wor—"  
  
His hand knocked the decapitated skeleton on the cobweb-covered ribs as the small skeleton tumbled over the edge of the well. Buffy closed her eyes as not only the skeleton, but the long chain attached to it, followed by a wooden bucket crashed down the well with all the quietness of a seventy-two-piece band.  
  
The horrible sounds echoed painfully throughout the room they were in and sure enough, throughout all of the mines. Finally, miraculously, after the seemingly endless racket, there was silence once again.  
  
"Good night, folks," Xander whispered. "We're here all week." Gandalf sighed painfully and hastily took back his hat and staff out of Pippin's hands. Pippin glared around guiltily and ashamed as the wizard began to step away from him.  
  
The ground shook. Buffy whipped around and glared at the well with fearful eyes. Distant booming sounds rumbled throughout the mines and into Balin's tomb, followed by the far-off shrieks of inhuman creatures. Many creatures.  
  
"Frodo..." Sam fearfully whispered as he stared down at Frodo's sheathed sword. Frodo reached down and revealed the blade of the small sword as it glowed a soft blue.  
  
"Is it supposed to do that?" Willow breathed, the sounds unnerving her as they did the others.  
  
Buffy answered intensely as she glared at the blade, "Only when storks are around..." The sound of rapid, approaching footsteps rang out and yanked their attentions towards the open door of the tomb.  
  
Spike bolted through the door into the room with a rapier in his hand, "We've got company!" Boromir rushed to the door and stopped immediately as two arrows soared through the air, jamming themselves into the door only inches away from Boromir's head.  
  
"Get back!" Aragorn ordered the hobbits. "Stay close to Gandalf!"  
  
"Slayer!" Spike called as Buffy turned to him. He tossed her the rapier through the room and she caught it by the hilt. "Looks like things are about to get interesting," he declared.  
  
Buffy took the weapon and ran towards the double doors of the tomb, where Boromir and Aragorn were struggling to push the doors closed. Buffy aided them and they easily shut while Legolas passed them long-handled axes to barricade the doors with. A horrible roar sounded out from behind the door.  
  
"What was that?" Xander asked nervously.  
  
"A cave-troll," Boromir turned to him with mock pleasantness in his voice.  
  
"What the hell is that doing in a cave?" Xander declared. Aragorn, Buffy and Boromir backed away from the door and went further into the tomb. Gandalf and Buffy drew their swords, as did the four hobbits while Frodo's sword continued to glow blue. Boromir stood with Buffy on his right, his sword out and his circular shield at his side, while Legolas and Aragorn stood next to him on his left, both of them with their bows and arrows at the ready.  
  
Xander and Willow reached down and pulled axes off of skeletons while Spike stood a few feet away in his own corner of the room, watching the door intently as it began to bang. A powerful force on the other side of the door pushed heavily on it as Gimli jumped up on the sarcophagus of his cousin, declaring furiously, "Let them come! There is one dwarf yet in Moria who still draws breath!"  
  
Weapons began to crash through the wooden doors and Legolas let an arrow fly into a hole, slaughtering the creature behind it that they could not yet see. It let out a fierce screech as Aragorn let an arrow go, striking another. The doors suddenly burst down as horrible, demonic-looking, slimy creatures dressed like humans in armor with weapons raced inside.  
  
Aragorn and Legolas let a few more arrows go, striking three orcs and killing them instantly. "Those are corks?" Willow exclaimed in fear.  
  
"Orcs!" Spike turned to her, shouting over the screeching howls. "Orcs! Can at least one of you plonkers say it right?"  
  
Gimli let out a mighty war cry as the Fellowship and the orcs clashed. Instantly, the room was flung into a mess of yelling and crashing as the short, wide blades of the orcs hammered down on the Fellowship.  
  
An orc countered a weapon-less Spike as he swiftly ducked underneath the swing of the orc's sword. He turned around, coming up behind the orc, grabbed the arm holding the short sword, and snapped the neck of the creature brutally. Spike snatched the short sword away from the orc, "I'll take that off your hands, mate."  
  
Buffy decapitated an orc swiftly with her rapier, then spun around and roundhouse kicked another oncoming orc in the head. The orc fell backwards fatally impaling himself on a spear held up by a skeleton and squealed in pain.  
  
With a yell, the hobbits charged forward and joined in on the fight. Pippin clocked an orc in the back of the skull with his blade, while Merry slashed his sword across an orc's stomach. Frodo quickly ducked beneath a short sword aimed for his neck, while Sam jammed his sword into the chest of an orc.  
  
Xander dropped to the ground and kicked, sweeping the legs out from under an orc and knocking it on his back. Xander jumped up and held his axe in the air, then brought it down fiercely on the orc's ugly, twisted face.  
  
Aragorn cut off the head of another orc and twisted himself around to stab another in the head. Willow jammed her axe into the back of an orc and ripped it back out, and then she kicked it up against the well where it tumbled inside and disappeared. Legolas shot off another arrow, striking an orc in the neck with perfect aim.  
  
Buffy turned around and knocked an orc down with a devastating right hook. She turned to her right to see Spike leap up and sidekick an orc to the ground just as another orc appeared behind him. Buffy rushed to the vampire as the orc reared back his short sword, Spike unbeknownst to it all with his back to the creature. "Spike, look out!" Buffy called and she tackled Spike to the ground, just as the sword barely missed Spike's neck.  
  
She hit the ground, rolled, then thrust her rapier up into the belly of the orc, killing it. When she yanked the sword out, she turned to her right to see Spike lying beside her, staring at her with a surprised look on his face. Without addressing him, she jumped back up and joined the fight as Spike slowly stood up and watched her go with a pleased smile.  
  
Sam ripped his blade out of another orc as a horrible roar rang out through the tomb. The hobbit fearfully glared up at the wooden doors as a gigantic, muscular, grey creature standing at least fifteen feet tall bashed his way through the wall with ease. The troll held a massively destructive hammer in its right hand while a chain was wrapped around its neck like a leash.  
  
The troll glared down at Sam, who stood less than a yard tall, and roared horribly, lifting its hammer up in the air. "Sam!" Xander shouted as he stood nearby. He raced over and tackled the hobbit, both of them jumping out of the way of the troll as the hammer crashed down behind them, shaking the ground.  
  
The rest of the Fellowship turned around from their battles and gazed at the cave-troll with wide, stunned eyes. "Hide!" Willow declared to Frodo, as Merry and Pippin pulled him away from the fight and hid him behind a stone pillar. Legolas fired an arrow into the shoulder of the troll and the monster yanked it out easily with no hassle at all.  
  
Gimli roared in anger and thrust an axe into the troll's other shoulder. It quickly glared at the axe, then raised its hammer over Gimli. The dwarf jumped off of Balin's sarcophagus as the hammer came crashing down on a corner of it, crushing it to pebbles.  
  
Legolas shot two arrows simultaneously at the troll and turned around, shoving his daggers into oncoming orcs. Gandalf used both his sword and his staff to knock away the creatures as they approached him.  
  
Willow was now on the second level balcony of the room as she swung her axe and buried it in the head of an orc, then turned around and held out her hand to another orc charging at her. "Incinarae!" she shouted, then a fireball erupted from her palm and collided with the orc. The flaming creature howled and shrieked as it finally collapsed into a flaming corpse. "I'm starting to get the hang of this," Willow breathed nervously.  
  
Suddenly, she was shoved several feet and hit the ground behind a pillar hard, just as the chain of the troll crashed into the wall she was standing in front of. Willow turned around to see that Legolas had pushed her and now found himself trapped by the troll as it whipped its chains madly at the elf.  
  
Willow stood up quickly and thrust her arm out again, shooting another fireball, but this time at the face of the cave-troll. The troll howled as its skin was incinerated, but it only faltered it a bit. The troll still whipped its chain at Legolas, but with its sight being temporarily blocked by the fire, it struck a pillar with its chain instead.  
  
Legolas shoved his foot on the chain and crawled up it towards the troll. The elf leapt on its head and fired three arrows into the back of its neck, then easily leapt down. Willow also descended the balcony quickly and clashed with an orc below.  
  
Buffy steadily fought three orcs at once, ripping and slashing with her rapier as she went along. She killed two and then turned to be knocked across the face with a club one of the orcs was holding. Buffy hit the ground hard and the sword was knocked out of her hands and across the floor. She looked up dazedly to see the orc raise its short sword above Buffy to plunge it down in her. A sword suddenly popped through the chest of the orc as Boromir shoved it away easily.  
  
He stared down at her as she gave him a thankful expression, and he offered his hand, pulling her back on her feet. "Look out!" Boromir shouted as Buffy quickly turned around and ducked underneath a swinging sword. As she ducked, she grabbed a piece of wood off of the ground and straightened up, thrusting the piece of wood into the orc's heart.  
  
"That's okay," Buffy grinned, staring at the dead orc. "I like it like this anyway."  
  
In vampface, Spike stabbed an orc in the chest with the short sword, then ripped it out and cut off its head. He turned around and sliced another orc in the side of its torso. Spike looked up across the room at Merry and Pippin as they were about to be sliced by the sword of one orc.  
  
"Watch it!" Spike shouted as Merry and Pippin turned around swiftly to see the orc coming at them. They ducked and both tripped over each other clumsily as the orc stood over them and roared in their faces, holding its sword in the air. Its head suddenly flew off as black blood spattered across the wall as its headless body fell to the floor. Spike yanked both of them on their feet as they stared at decapitated orc. "Gone," Spike noted. "Already forgotten."  
  
Orcs began to pile on top of Xander and Sam, both of them having lost their weapons. "What do we do, Mr. Xander?" Sam exclaimed in fear.  
  
Xander looked over at Sam's backpack and reached inside. "When all else fails," Xander declared, pulling out two iron weapons, "hit it with a frying pan." They stood tall with the corning ware in their hands and began to smash in the skulls of orcs left and right.  
  
Spike, Merry, Pippin and Frodo turned around to see the troll standing behind them. It raised its hammer with a howl as the group separated, diving in two directions. Frodo jumped behind a pillar by himself while the other three retreated to another pillar.  
  
"Frodo!" Aragorn called, yards away as he shoved his Ranger sword into the chest of an orc. Fearfully, Frodo moved around the pillar as the troll searched for him, snarling and sniffing for the Ring-bearing hobbit. Finally, the troll disappeared and he breathed a sigh of relief right before it reappeared only inches away from him and roared in his face.  
  
Frodo jumped back, collapsing to the ground. The troll reached its beefy fingers into the corner and grabbed the small hobbit by its legs, pulling Frodo towards him. "Aragorn!" Frodo shouted as he was dragged along. "Aragorn!"  
  
Spike charged at the troll and using his vampire strength, he leapt up from the ground onto the back of the troll, shoving his sword into the troll's back and pulling himself up on its shoulders. The troll howled and swatted at the vampire, finally backhanding him off of his neck and into a stone pillar, flinging him easily. Buffy turned towards him as Spike crashed with devastating force into the pillar and dropped down to the floor, lying motionlessly.  
  
Frodo glared up at the troll in terror as it raised its hammer above its head. Aragorn suddenly dropped down in front of Frodo with a long spear in his hands. He jabbed the spear into the belly of the cave-troll and it let out a ferocious, shrieking wail. The troll swatted at Aragorn with its beefy arm, knocking the human out of the way and Aragorn smashed into the rocky wall.  
  
Frodo rushed over to Aragorn as he lay there, unmoving and unconscious. He suddenly turned around hearing another fierce howl as the troll, now with the spear out of its stomach and in its hand, jammed the spear powerfully into his chest.  
  
Buffy slashed the throat of an orc – she had been fighting her way towards Frodo – and gazed out in horror to see the little hobbit impaled at the end of the long spear. Gandalf, Merry and Pippin were the next to see their friend with a grimace twisting his face. Merry and Pippin looked at each other, then turned their swords around and leapt on the back of the troll, jamming the swords into its flesh.  
  
Frodo groaned as the spear stuck out of him, pain radiating from his blue eyes. "Frodo," Sam called softly, staring at his best friend. Xander turned around with shock in his eyes as he watched Frodo writhe in pain. "Frodo!" Sam shouted as he and Xander fiercely clashed into the orcs blocking their path.  
  
Buffy stabbed the last orc between her and Frodo to see the little hobbit collapse to his knees and crash down to the floor on his face. Two more orcs suddenly approached her on both sides. Furiously, she grabbed each of them and shoved them away as they flew through the air and crashed into the walls.  
  
The troll threw Merry off of its back and he crashed to the ground. Legolas raised his arrow and fired into the back of the cave-troll's mouth. It howled in protest, but its moves suddenly became slower and more detached. They watched as it clumsily stumbled and finally crashed to the ground as dead as a doornail, bringing Pippin down with it.  
  
Buffy raced over to Frodo and turned him over in her arms, gazing down at the hole in his shirt near his heart. Gandalf, Aragorn, Sam and the rest of the Fellowship slowly moved towards the fallen hobbit. "No," Buffy shook her head, staring at his lifeless body, "no..."  
  
"He's not dead," Spike announced and they turned to him. He stood near a pillar, no longer in vamp face as he explained, "His heart's still beating."  
  
Aragorn stared at him in confusion, then turned to Frodo, "How—"  
  
Frodo suddenly gasped for air and began to cough, opening his eyes and gazing up at Buffy, kneeling over him. "Oh, my God, he's alive!" Willow exclaimed.  
  
"That's what I just said, isn't it?" Spike declared. "Little runt's got some skin on him."  
  
They glared at Frodo in blessed relief as he sat up, holding his chest and breathing heavily, "He's right... I'm not hurt..."  
  
"That spear would've skewered a wild boar," Aragorn shook his head in amazement.  
  
"Oh, I get it," Xander declared with a smile. "You did the whole spear-in-between-the-arm trick. Very clever. If you do it again we'll kill you."  
  
"I think there's more to this hobbit than meets the eye," Gandalf announced. Frodo gazed up at him and then stared down, opening his shirt and revealing to them a shiny, white and silver mesh undershirt.  
  
"Hey," Willow gaped down at it with her head to one side, "nice shirt..."  
  
"Mithril," Gimli breathed. The Scoobies gazed around at the rest of the Fellowship, as they stared at his shirt in wonder.  
  
"That's some of the strongest material known in Middle Earth," Gandalf smiled.  
  
"Huh," Buffy nodded, turning to him, "once again... fashion saves a life."  
  
"You are full of surprises, Master Baggins," Gimli grinned. They shared a calm moment before they heard the skittering and shrieks of dozens more orcs coming their way. Gandalf looked around the tomb nervously, then turned back to the Fellowship.  
  
"To the Bridge of Khazad-dûm!" he ordered. 


	8. Bridge

* * *

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).  
  
IMPORTANT: I should probably address this now, since I've gotten quite a few emails about it. As for the errors in grammar - I'm not really an English major, and even though the chapters are reviewed before they're posted, I'll keep trying to revise and edit them to be more correct. If you notice any problems that are specific, feel free to let me know by emailing me:  
  
ABOUT THE DIALOGUE ERRORS: Lord of the Rings is a pretty complicated fandom to cross over with Buffy, more complicated than say Smallville or X-Files because to be true to the story and characters you have to go pretty much by the books (and/or movies). The Fellowship (the original nine) is a Fellowship for a specific time and for a specific reason, and in my story the LOTR-verse has to mend to the Buffyverse to a certain extent, but it cannot stray too far from the original story. However, the Buffyverse for one reason or another can bend more to the LOTR story than the other way around.  
  
Because I have to keep so close to the original LOTR story, I make a point of changing some of the dialogue of the LOTR characters because it's not much of an original story if I just copy down word-for-word every single thing that they do and say. (That is what I did in the Prologue and first chapter to stress the point of THIS how it's supposed to be, and THIS is where the two worlds change.) Since this is sort of supposed to be a lost Buffy episode, I don't really have to worry about what the Scoobies say as long as it stays true to their characters.  
  
But once again, thank you for paying so much attention to these details and I will try to correct as many errors as I can find.  
  
**8: Bridge**  
  
The floorboards of the Magic Box began to shake beneath Giles, Anya, Riley and Tara as they continued their trance. A gust of wind began to blow through the room that gave a tremendous howl.  
  
"One heart..." Giles breathed, his mind far away from him.  
  
Anya added, her mind also entrenched, "One demon..."  
  
Tara softly whispered as the wind blew her blonde hair around, "One power..."  
  
Riley declared with determined finality, "One champion..."  
  
Their concentration was broken by a low-pitched, deep bellow that sounded out through the magic shop. They opened their eyes and turned towards the back of the store in front of the counter where a bluish, translucent light began to appear like a puff of smoke.  
  
"There!" Anya declared, pointing at the cloud. "Something's happening!"  
  
"It's working," Riley grinned. "We're bridging the gap!"

* * *

"A Balrog," Gandalf declared gravely. The Fellowship stood in the middle of a great hall as it slowly began to creak and moan. Far away from them at the very end, firelight appeared out of nowhere and began to glow even brighter, quickly approaching them.  
  
"Come again?" Spike turned to the wizard.  
  
"A demon of the ancient world," Gandalf continued, his fears beginning to take him over.  
  
"Like an old one?" Willow asked, then turned to Buffy, "'cause we've had those before."  
  
Buffy stared down the hall at the approaching light, "I don't know, Will." She shook her head and sighed nervously, "I don't think it's the same thing."  
  
"I sure hope not," Xander gawked at the firelight, and then glanced at the others. "Unless anybody happens to have any spare C4 lying around?"  
  
"This is beyond any of you," Gandalf announced, then turned away. He yelled out, "Run!" A second later, the Fellowship raced down the hall as the firelight followed them. They reached the end of the great hall and entered another gigantic cave illuminated with fire. The path ended with a magnificent drop off, darkness extending further down than even the eye of an elf could see.  
  
The gazed down at the drop off in fear – there was no place left to run. Aragorn turned to the wizard, "Gandalf—"  
  
"Lead them on," he ordered instantly, then signaled across the cavern to a bridge crossing the massive gorge. Aragorn hesitated as Gandalf roared, "Do as I say! Swords are no more use here."  
  
The cloudy ball of light in the Magic Box began tear apart and circle around, becoming a small vortex. Giles, Riley, Anya and Tara stood up and rushed towards the vortex, standing near the entrance of the room as it began to whirl and howl in front of them. The speed increased and it blew more wind through the store, sounds of thunder and flashes of lighting following after.  
  
The circular vortex increased in size as well, becoming a bluish, cloudy, swirling disc with a diameter of at least twelve feet across. "The portal!" Anya declared elatedly. "It's opening!"  
  
"Now we wait for it to find Buffy!" Giles shouted over the moaning of the wind.  
  
Aragorn led the Fellowship down long, winding staircases of stone and descended through the gorge. The narrow stone staircases were angled at a steep incline, and with a single slip, one could disappear into the darkness below.  
  
The Fellowship steadily and carefully moved down the stairs until they came to a place where the staircase was broken in the middle. Legolas approached the gap of about a yard and easily leapt over it to the lower part of the stairs. A cracking noise sounded out through the cavern as the staircase the rest of the Fellowship was on shifted a teeny distance.  
  
"Gandalf!" Legolas called out to the wizard and signaled him to jump. Gandalf looked back at the entrance to the cavern, knowing the Balrog was not far behind. He gazed down at the lower staircase and jumped the gap. Swishing sounds filled the cavern as a rain of arrows bombarded the Fellowship.  
  
Buffy stared far away at the walls of the cavern and could barely see orcs with bows and arrows firing at them. "These guys don't give up, do they?" she declared.  
  
"Neither do we," Willow announced. Buffy turned to her to see her eyes dark with magic as Willow began to whisper into the wind. Legolas pulled out his bow and arrows and began to fire back, striking an orc directly in between its amphibian-like eyes.  
  
"Merry! Pippin!" Boromir called out as he scooped up both hobbits in his arms and jumped the gap. As his feet left the end of the staircase, it gave way, now making the gap five feet wide.  
  
Willow continued to whisper in Latin as she turned her palms up to the ceiling. Two orange balls of light appeared and floated above her hands as screeches rang out in the cave. Looking back at the cave walls, Buffy watched as several orcs, now on fire, collapse off of the walls as their flaming bodies plunged down into the darkness below.  
  
"Sam," Buffy grabbed the hobbit on her right, easily tossing him far over the gap and into Boromir's arms.  
  
The Slayer turned to Gimli next, but he put his hand up to her, insulted, and declared, "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" Without even a running start, Gimli jumped over the gap, his feet barely reaching the edge as he began to fall backwards into the gorge. Legolas reached out and grabbed the dwarf by his long, red facial hair and pulled him towards the others. "Not the beard!" Gimli shouted as he was pulled to safety.  
  
Aragorn fired an arrow and suddenly the staircase beneath him gave way. Buffy was on the edge of the staircase as the stones fell from beneath her feet. She began to plunge to the bottom but her wrist was suddenly caught. Aragorn held on to her arm tightly and the Slayer pulled herself up on the stairs.  
  
Gandalf, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Boromir, Legolas and Gimli stood on the bottom half of the stairs and looked up at Aragorn, Buffy, Willow, Xander, Spike and Frodo who stood on the top half looking down on them, twelve feet of nothingness separating them.  
  
Buffy turned around and ordered, "Spike – grab Frodo! You can make it." With a nod, the vampire picked Frodo off of the ground, and with a running start, Spike easily cleared the gap, landing softly on the other side.  
  
They all turned around towards the entrance from which they came and heard horrible roars and crashing behind the wall. The stones of the wall suddenly popped out and rolled down into the gorge. One of the humongous boulders of the wall tumbled towards them and crashed directly on the flight of stairs that Aragorn and the Scoobies were on. The boulder took out a chunk of the stairs behind them, now isolating them on a pillar.  
  
"Oh, this isn't good!" Xander exclaimed as he felt the pillar holding their part of the stairs up creak and crumble. The entire pillar began to shift. "This is really bad!"  
  
"We've had bad," Willow breathed nervously, glaring down at her feet. "We can do bad!"  
  
"Yeah, we can do bad," Xander answered. "But this is worse!"  
  
"Hold on, everyone!" Aragorn ordered.  
  
"Really don't have to worry about that," Buffy swallowed, staring down at the pillar as it began to sway. The stones holding up the stairs began to crack and break. The crumbling noises rattled their bones as they struggled to keep their balance. The pillar slowly began to lean to the right as they stood helplessly on the edge of the stairs.  
  
"We're gonna die!" Xander yelled.  
  
"No, we're not!" Buffy declared.  
  
"You're right," Xander answered very calmly all of a sudden. "We're going to plummet several hundred stories... and then we're gonna die!"  
  
"Lean forward!" Aragorn commanded as the three of them followed his directions. The pillar groaned loudly as they slowly and steadily began to lean towards the other members of the Fellowship.  
  
"Come on..." Legolas breathed nervously. The staircase crashed directly into the other part as the four remaining Fellowship members quickly stepped off of the collapsing pillar. Now a group of thirteen once again, the Fellowship retreated speedily down the stairs as the unmanned pillar leaned to its left and tumbled into the gorge.

* * *

Lightning flashed inside of the Magic Box as Riley walked closer to the portal waiting anxiously for his girlfriend's return. "Giles?" Riley called out, turning back to the watcher. "How long is it supposed to take to find them?"  
  
"I'm not sure," Giles hollered out. Suddenly, another strong gust of wind exploded from the portal – this one much stronger than any of the others. Riley was shoved several feet and fell on his back while the others were pushed backwards into the front of the store. Howls rang out from the inside of the portal as the wind battered down on the four humans in the store.  
  
Tara looked up towards the portal, barely able to see because of the strong gust of wind blowing in her face. "Look!" she yelled. "Someone's coming through!" Giles, Riley and Anya also gazed at the portal as the blue light it was radiating suddenly turned a bright and fiery red. The bridge was now fully open as a voice called out from the portal.  
  
_"I... see... you..."_  
  
Suddenly, a massive figure stepped through the red disc. The four humans glared up at the humongous figure that towered over them, standing fourteen feet tall. He was dressed like a knight in black armor with a thick, black cape draped over him that hung down to his feet. His helmet was the most frightening off all: A spiny, black iron mask with two small walnut-shaped holes for eyes and six long, black spokes sticking out of the top of the helmet as if it were a crown. In its left hand, it carried a massive, medieval back club. Giles riveted his fearful eyes down at the right hand of the knight from hell.  
  
Four of its fingers were missing.

* * *

They reached the bridge finally as Gandalf directed them past the puddles of fire all around them. Gandalf turned around towards the flames as a mighty, winged beast of hell reared its horned head and breathed flaming air.  
  
"My God," Buffy whispered in utter amazement at the ram-headed beast covered in fire and smoke. "Somehow 'Big Bad' just doesn't cover it..."  
  
"Come on, Buff!" Xander called as she turned and followed the rest of the Fellowship, Gandalf running after them with the Balrog in pursuit. The demon stomped down the hallway towards the bridge, following them closely. They could feel the unbearable heat on their backs as they sped across the narrow bridge over the naked, pitch darkness of the gorge.  
  
Buffy ran to the end of the bridge, being the next-to-last in the Fellowship line as she heard a deafening roar. She froze and spun around to see Gandalf standing in the middle of the bridge, glaring at the Balrog defiantly.  
  
"You cannot pass!" Gandalf declared furiously.  
  
"Gandalf!" Frodo called, as the rest of the Fellowship watched near the exit of the mines.  
  
"Hey, Gandalf!" Buffy hollered. "Hell beast big. Very big! He can do whatever he wants! Let's just get out of here!" Gandalf didn't listen to her. He raised his staff at the fiery demon as it reared up before him, revealing a body of fire.  
  
"I am a servant of the Secret Fire," Gandalf announced, glaring at the Balrog as the end of his staff glowed white, "wielder of the flame of Anor."  
  
Buffy gazed at the Balrog in panic, knowing it was about to kill the wizard. "I really don't think he's interested in your credentials!" she pleaded. "Come on!"  
  
The Balrog suddenly produced a curved sword of fire and raised it high. "The dark fire will not avail you," Gandalf responded, "flame of Udûn!" With a roar, the Balrog brought the sword of fire down on Gandalf, but it was blocked and shattered by an unseen force. Gandalf's staff continued to glow a bright white until it circled him in a brilliant white ball.  
  
"Go back to the Shadow!" Gandalf hissed, glaring at the Balrog.  
  
"He told him..." Xander declared, watching in amazement along with the others. The Balrog pulled out a whip of fire and snapped it loudly across the cavern.  
  
"You..." Gandalf shouted at the top of his lungs, raising his sword and staff in the air, "shall not... pass!" Gandalf shoved the staff into the bridge at his feet as white light erupted from the ground and the Balrog shrunk back and snorted in protest.  
  
The ground beneath the feet of the Balrog suddenly crumbled as half of the bridge collapsed. The Fellowship watched, stunned, as the Balrog slowly began to descend into the darkness, cracking its whip as it disappeared into smoke and shadow.  
  
The deed was done. Gandalf stared down at the demon as it disappeared from his sight and he turned around towards the Fellowship and towards Buffy who stood astonished at the end of the bridge. Gandalf let out a sigh of relief as suddenly, the whip of fire reached out of the shadows and wrapped around the wizard's legs. He dropped his staff and sword as his legs were pulled out from under him and he tumbled off of the end of the bridge, clutching desperately to the edge by his fingers.

* * *

The Dark Lord tromped towards the four helpless humans. Every time one of its colossal feet touched the ground, the floorboards would break and snap under the pressure. Riley stared up in stunned horror as the knight reared its club back, aiming for him.  
  
"No!" Buffy screamed as she charged towards the bridge. She was yanked back and held there by Boromir who desperately hung on to her, shouting in her ear.  
  
"No, Buffy!" he declared. "You cannot help him!"  
  
Frodo sped past the rest of the Fellowship; no one was there to hold him back. Spike turned to see the hobbit run towards Gandalf, but appeared in a flash and grabbed him by the hood of his cloak. He clutched him by his shoulders and pulled him back as well.

* * *

With one horrendous blow, Riley was batted across the store and smashed against the wall, breaking plaster and bricks off with him as he crashed to the floor. Giles tackled Anya and Tara out of the way as the knight entered the room and swung his club again. A force-field erupted from the club, shattering and crushing everything in its path.  
  
The walls of the store cracked and the furniture was blown to bits. The glass exploded and shattered as Giles, Anya and Tara desperately shrunk to the ground as if a hurricane was battering down on top of them. They could hear nothing but endless crashing and exploding as the very floor itself gave way next to the Dark Lord. The glass counter was ripped out of the floor and thrown across the room like a small toy, smashing against the wall.  
  
Terrified, Tara gawked at the monstrous knight as it stared down at them. She feared that it would come for them and deal the same kind of punishment it had shown Riley. It did not, though. It continued to stare at them... and then gazed down at its own six-fingered hands.  
  
The Dark Lord slowly began to fade away and become translucent. He turned around towards the roaring vortex portal behind him, and slowly marched towards it. He disappeared into the fiery, swirling cloud and it, too, faded away – closing the bridge between the two worlds. The fiery light disappeared, the thunder stopped booming, the lighting stopped flashing and the wind stopped howling.  
  
Not a sound could be heard inside of the store.

* * *

The Fellowship quietly watched Gandalf as he stared at him, glaring into their eyes. "Fly, you fools," he declared with the last ounce of hope he had for himself, and let go of the edge of the bridge.  
  
"No!" Frodo screamed, his voice twisted with torment as he watched the wizard disappear into the darkness. Buffy was still and quiet and could hear no other sounds beside her own heartbeat. Her vision was blurred by tears that ran cold down her hot face as she motionlessly stared at the edge of the bridge.  
  
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear Frodo's screams of agony and footsteps up the stairs leading out of the exit, but they were no more than faint whispers. She felt herself being moved and her feet moving too, but it was not until she pulled her eyes away from the bridge to see that Boromir was pulling her out of the cavern.  
  
They passed Aragorn, who stood at the edge as more orc arrows whizzed past them, and he stared motionlessly at the bridge as well. "Aragorn!" Legolas called, catching his attention. He glanced back at the exit, then turned to the bridge, and then finally began to run out of the mines after Buffy, Boromir and Legolas escaped as well.

* * *

Tara picked herself off of the ground. She was somewhere near the door to the basement of the store. She felt blood on her face and hands and pushed herself off of the glass she was lying on as it pierced her torso. Her chest ached as she breathed and she glared around the Magic Box in fear.  
  
The portal was gone. All was still. The windows of the store were blown out as they poured sunlight into the front room, where a cloud of dirty dust covered everywhere she could see. Somewhere through the dust she could see sparks and a small fire burning and she gazed around in terror as the memory of what had happened came back to her.  
  
"Riley..." she coughed with dread. "Riley!" Tara was barely able to stand, yet she moved slowly towards the place where she saw Riley fall, next to the front door. She felt around in the darkness of the dust cloud as her hand touched a puddle of warm blood.  
  
She followed the path of blood up to a body and gazed down to see that it was Riley. He was motionless and quiet and as she touched his shirt she could feel it soaked with blood.  
  
"Help!" Tara looked up and called out through the store as if she were shouting in the middle of a field. "He's not breathing! Help!"  
  
She could hear no reply.

* * *

They sat outside of exit to the mines as daylight poured down on them. Buffy's legs felt like butter as she tried to walk among the rocks. They were in front of a spectacular mountain vista as wind blew passed them, yet she felt as if she were suffocating.  
  
It was a while before she noticed that tears were falling down her face. Something had gone monumentally wrong, and in her heart she knew it was her fault. Maybe if she had been the one at the end of the line... Maybe if she had gone back and pulled Gandalf away from the battle with the Balrog... Maybe if she had gone after him when he fell...  
  
She was the Slayer. The hero. The champion. And it was because of her that she and her friends were cast into this dimension. Maybe things would have been different if they had never come...  
  
Spike words rang in her mind: _'We're not even supposed to be here!'_  
  
He was right. Oh, God, was he right... "I could've saved him," Buffy breathed, her stomach twisting with sickness, "I could've saved him..."  
  
Buffy turned away to hear the sounds of sobs. Sam dropped down, sitting on a rock with his hand to his head as tears fell from his eyes. Xander, looking more drained than she had ever seen him be, stood beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. Buffy turned further to see Pippin crying uncontrollably while Merry had his hand on his friend's arm. Willow kneeled down beside Pippin as she slowly wrapped his bloody arm with a makeshift bandage, silent tears falling down her cheeks as well.  
  
Aragorn turned around with resolve and declared, "Legolas, get them up." Legolas slightly turned looked over at him suddenly, as if being snapped out of his own remorseful daze. Still wearing an expression clouded with disbelief, he moved slowly towards the hobbits.  
  
"Give them a moment for pity's sake!" Boromir snapped, glaring at Aragorn.  
  
"By nightfall these hills will be swarming with orcs," he declared, keeping his position. "We must reach the woods of Lothlórien." Aragorn sheathed his sword and Boromir said nothing in reply. "Come, Boromir. Legolas... Gimli..." Aragorn ordered them all, and then turned to the tired-looking, defeated, blonde-haired little girl who felt very much alone. "Buffy," he added, "get them up."  
  
Xander, sporting a bruise under his right eye, looked down at Sam and tapped him on the shoulder, "Come on. Get up, man." Sam nodded sadly and pushed himself into standing up. With a swollen lower lip, Willow extended her hand and helped Pippin stand up as Merry stood alongside him. A few feet away, Spike silently stared out at the mountains with his hands on his hips. Blood rested on his brow as he let his eyes fall to the ground. A few moments later, he sighed and slowly followed them, trekking across the rocky terrain.  
  
Buffy gazed around, still in a daze, and softly called, "Frodo?" She turned to the brown-haired hobbit as he slowly walked towards the edge of the cliff away from them. "Frodo!" she called and he stopped.  
  
Buffy watched as he very slowly turned his head towards her and she saw in his deep, blue eyes a large fraction of the pain and torment she had remembered from her vision. Her heart broke as she watched a tear roll down his face and she longed more than ever to be home.  
  
Where she could forget... 


	9. Aftermath

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).

**9: Aftermath**

Dawn pushed open the back door to the Magic Box to hear its bell ring a distorted tone, then fall to the ground. She gazed out at the magic store to see a cloud of dust hanging over the ground. It entered her nasal passages and choked her as she coughed and called out, "Giles! Anya! Riley! Tara!"  
  
Timidly, she entered the store, squinting through the gloomy dark towards the light radiating from the back. Outside of the shop, she could hear the sounds of sirens in the distance. "Anybody?" she added and began a desperate search.  
  
"Dawn?" she heard from across the store, near the light. "Is that you?"  
  
"Yeah!" she yelled back. "Anya? Is that your voice?"  
  
"Watch out, Dawn!" Tara responded with a loud voice, over the popping of electrical sockets and the crisp sounds of tiny fires burning. "I think there's a hole in the floor near where you are!"  
  
Dawn stopped and glanced down at an elliptical hole two by three feet wide in the middle of the floor. "Found it," she called back. Wooden splinters and shards of glass littered the dusty floor around her as the sirens grew louder. Carefully, she walked up the steps towards the front of the store. "I'm coming towards you..." she announced.  
  
Finally, a few feet further, she saw the two women crouched down next to Riley's stationary body. "Oh, my God!" she screamed. "What happened?"  
  
"I don't know," Anya softly answered, staring down at Riley. Her voice was full of defeat and despair. "Everything was okay... then... it did this."  
  
"Where's Giles?" Dawn asked, her voice rising to a panic.  
  
"We can't find him," Tara replied. "We looked but—"  
  
"Is there anybody alive in here?" a booming, male voice called from the front door. Dawn looked up to see a fireman standing in the doorway as another walked past him, going directly towards a small flame in the center of the store.  
  
"Here!" Dawn called out as the fireman spotted her and the others.  
  
The fireman walked over towards them as Tara responded, "You have to help him. He's bleeding and... and I don't think..." The words faded away from her as the fireman kneeled down beside Riley's body.  
  
"Is there anybody else?" he asked.  
  
"Giles," Anya breathed, still in a daze. "We can't find Giles."  
  
The fireman looked up at her as they heard the pressure releasing from a fire extinguisher nearby. Anya stared at him idly as if he were an alien as he asked her, "That's all?"  
  
"That's all," Dawn answered, her heart racing. "Please, help him now!"  
  
"Don't worry, little girl," the fireman announced.

* * *

The Fellowship wearily and gradually walked through a forest of raining leaves, similar to the woods near Rivendell. None of them said much to one another and some of them limped along, quietly keeping their aches and pains to themselves.  
  
Buffy, Xander, Willow and Spike kept to the end of the line most of the way, following the hobbits in front of them with watchful eyes. Gimli stopped and turned back towards them, whispering quietly, "Stay close, young hobbits." The Scoobies and hobbits stopped as Gimli explained, eyeing the forest around them in suspicion, "They say that a great sorceress lives in these woods. An elf-witch of terrible power."  
  
Xander stared down at the ground, shaking his head as he sighed, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."  
  
Gimli and the others walked on as the dwarf clutched his axe tightly. "All who look upon her fall under her spell," he nervously added. They continued on the trail as Frodo turned his head suddenly, batting his eyes around. "And are never seen again," Gimli whispered.  
  
"See?" Willow observed him, then glared over at Gimli. "Now you're scaring him."  
  
"Mr. Frodo?" Sam said, watching his friend with concern.  
  
Buffy continued to walk as she held on to the black cloak and wrapped her arms around herself. She glanced at Frodo with wary anxiety, then suddenly turned her head and gazed around the woods herself as a soft, fleeting voice whispered in her ears.  
  
"[_Buffy Summers_...]" the airy, female voice called out like a hiss in the wind. "[_There is not much time for you... Your world is beginning to shatter... The Beast waits_...]"  
  
"Buffy?" Willow's voice broke through her trance. Buffy turned to her with confusion in her eyes. "Are you okay?" Willow asked.  
  
Buffy answered, not quite sure herself, "Yeah... I heard..." She chose not to finish the sentence and continued steadily on.  
  
"Well here's one dwarf she won't ensnare so easily," Gimli scoffed as he gazed around cautiously at the woods. "I have the eyes of a hawk and ears of a fox—"  
  
He paused suddenly as sharp arrows were pointed in his face. The Fellowship looked up to find themselves surrounded by long-haired, blonde elves that held their arrows back, ready to snap at the slightest movement. Legolas countered, holding his bow and arrow up at the elves.  
  
Spike rolled his eyes as he turned to Legolas, "Does your entire race enjoy doing that?"  
  
A tall, blonde elf that did not hold an arrow strolled up to Aragorn with his hands casually behind his back, "The dwarf breathes so loud, we could have shot him in the dark."  
  
Aragorn reverently bowed his head, "Haldir of Lorien..." He began to speak in elfish tongue again as the elf calmly listened.  
  
"Aragorn," Gimli nervously announced with three arrows pointed at his face, "these woods are perilous. We should go back."  
  
"You have entered the realm of the Lady of the Wood," Haldir declared simply. "You cannot go back." Haldir turned and stared directly at Frodo who gasped lightly with fear. "Come," he ordered. "She is waiting."

* * *

The hospital doors of Sunnydale Medical slid open as two stretchers were pushed inside by paramedics with Tara, Anya and Dawn nervously in pursuit.  
  
Tara rushed in and marched alongside both stretchers, one holding a still unconscious Riley and the other holding a barely conscious Giles, as she gave out information, names and a believable explanation for what happened. Dawn ran beside them as well, frightfully asking the same questions over and over again. Anya on the other hand, was petrified into silence as she dazedly followed the stretchers, staring down at the floor as she shook her head in disbelief.  
  
"The patient is in stable condition," a female paramedic said of Giles as the watcher opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling tiles as the light fixtures passed him by. "He's gonna be okay."  
  
"This one's pulse is slowing down," one of the paramedics declared of Riley as he pumped air into his mouth. "Get an EKG on him, now! We need to get him into the OR."

* * *

The Fellowship moved slowly through a truly enchanted forest. The Scoobies gawked in amazement as they walked through the peaceful, heavenly city. Massive trees towered in the sky with glittering staircases spiraling around them, leading up to homes on the top. Even the air that filled their lungs was exquisite, and they felt very much out of place in the city seemingly built for a god.  
  
"This place," Willow breathed, barely able to get the words out.  
  
"I know..." Buffy nodded, captivated by the sheer beauty of everything around her. "I know..."  
  
They were led to a grand, white stone staircase that sparkled in the moonlight, as much of Lothlórien did. Two figures bathed by white light and dressed in glistening white robes leisurely stepped down the staircase, almost as if they were floating on air.  
  
Buffy and Willow's jaws slowly fell open as they made out the figures. A man. No, an elf with long blonde hair holding the hand of a tall, female elf with curly blonde hair reaching her waist as they walked down the stairs towards them.  
  
Buffy stared at the woman who did not look at any of them and kept her eyes on the ground. Her face, her hair, her clothes, her aura – everything about her made her the epitome of beauty. Xander also stared at this gorgeous, angelic woman before him and could not think or comprehend anything that was being said. Spike gazed at her in fascination until it felt as if both his eyes and heart ached to watch her and he turned away.  
  
"Twelve there are," the male elf announced peacefully and carefully, "yet thirteen there were set out from Rivendell." The blue eyes of the elf bored at Aragorn, "Tell me, where is Gandalf? I much desire to speak with him."  
  
The elegant woman turned her blue eyes to Aragorn, staring into his eyes quietly. Her mouth opened and her soft voice declared with a hint of despair, "He has fallen into Shadow." There was no reply from what was left of the Fellowship, as their eyes fell to the floor. "The quest stands upon the edge of a knife," the beautiful woman declared as she gazed peacefully at Buffy.  
  
The Slayer swallowed hard, feeling as if the woman was staring down into her soul. "Stray but a little and it will fail," the woman continued, as she peered over at Boromir, "to the ruin of all." Her eyes burned into his and he began to sweat uncomfortably, and he finally turned away from her in fear.  
  
The woman continued to stare at him in silence, speaking in volumes with her stunning eyes as she flicked them towards Sam, who stood in between Willow and Xander. They gaped at her as she delicately spoke to them, "Yet hope remains while the Company is true." The woman lifted her eyes again and announced to all, "Do not let your hearts be troubled." She glanced over at Buffy and Spike, "Go now and rest... for you are weary with sorrow and much toil."  
  
Buffy stared up at the woman, still perplexed and heard her voice speak gently, "Tonight, you will sleep—"  
  
Buffy could no longer hear the woman's words, but she could still hear her voice inside of her head as before. The eerie whisper rose through her skull, "[_Many search for you, Chosen One... Many more may die for you..._]" Buffy's heart began to beat rapidly as she listened the echo of the chilling words, "[_Your time is running out._]"

* * *

Anya sat in a chair in the hallway of Sunnydale Medical Hospital in silence as she peered down at the grey tiles of the floor. Her head and light brown, curly locks of hair rested on her right hand propped up on the arm rest of the chair. A corner of her forehead and part of her chin was bruised. Stings of pain shot up her spine every time she moved too quickly. Misery clouded her gaze, but none of it was caused by her physical injuries. The sounds of approaching footsteps broke her trance.  
  
Tara walked up to Anya and carefully sat down beside her, her eyes full of exhaustion. She sported a cut above her left eyebrow that had a band-aid over it and her right arm was in a sling. "How're you doing?" Tara asked kindly.  
  
Anya turned to her and could not give much of an answer for quite some time. She finally turned away and responded with a quiet voice, "Not so good."  
  
Tara nodded as silence fell between them. "I-I keep thinking about what happened," Tara began nervously, trying to fill the gap, "in the Magic Box. I found Giles' book about Middle Earth. It - it wasn't destroyed, thankfully." She let out a smile, but Anya continued to stare at the ground with a grave expression plastered on her face. "The thing, th-the thing that came through the portal," Tara continued, "it must have been Sauron. It became corporeal, but only in this world for the short time that it could. But the bridge, i-it was unstable." Tara looked over at Anya who had no reply, "So it had to go back."  
  
Tara stared down at the hospital floor in silence again, trying to think of something useful to say. Finally, she remembered, "Th-that must mean that either Madam Rousseau was wrong... or we were. She told us that it took the specific four people to keep open a portal th-that would find the others." Tara continued to think, her eyes full of contemplation as she added, "But then she said that other thing that I'd forgotten about. What was it? Uh, 'one alone can bear the weight of this task... but it will take all to guide him.' What did she—"  
  
"What time is it?" Anya finally asked, interrupting her.  
  
Tara looked over to Anya, the sadness returning to her eyes as she hesitantly answered, "Ten minutes until five."  
  
Anya inhaled very slowly, her eyes buried into the floor. She then asked with a shaky voice, "What time does the sun set?"  
  
Tara again glanced over at her and hesitated before she solemnly replied, "7:22." Neither of them said a word for a while until Tara sympathetically began, "Anya, I know you're—"  
  
"I'm what?" she snapped, turning towards Tara with livid eyes. "Sad? Scared? Worried? I'm what? You don't have any idea what I'm feeling right now."  
  
"Yes, I do," Tara affirmed, staring back at her. "Willow's out there too—"  
  
"And why are they out there, Tara?" Anya responded. "Because Buffy did a trance. A trance that I gave her the idea to do. And now, they're all out there. Because of me."  
  
"That's not true—"  
  
"Yes, it is!" Anya declared defiantly as she quickly stood up out of her chair and paid no attention to the searing pain in her back. "Don't you get it?" she shouted, staring down at Tara. "They're gone! We barely have two and a half hours and we don't have any idea how to get them back! And we don't even know what they're facing! I mean look at that thing that came into the store! We don't know if they're alive! They're out there... they've been there for days... lost and..."  
  
Tears broke her voice and she couldn't finish. Anya stared down at her witheringly as she quickly turned away and rushed down the hall, tears falling down her face. Tara watched her go with wide, stunned eyes that gradually began to brim with tears. She stared down at the floor and was silent as doctors and nurses rushed past her.

* * *

Angelic voices filled the air as the Fellowship gathered inside two tents at the base of the trees. Buffy looked up from her cot and stepped outside of the tent to see Legolas pass her by. Eventually, they all stared up at the trees around them and took note of the harmonious melodies filling the air in the foreign language of the elves.  
  
"A lament for Gandalf," Legolas declared, as moonlight shined down on his face.  
  
Buffy looked over to him and asked, "What are they saying?"  
  
"I have not the heart to tell you," he replied, turning towards her, Xander and the hobbits. "For me, the grief is still too near." Buffy looked back up at the sparkling trees that towered over her as the voices continued to fill her ears. Slowly, she turned away and walked idly from the tent towards a pond.  
  
Spike sat on a stone outside of the tent gazing around at the trees around him. Even he felt a strange sort of peace surrounded by the soft voices. A male elf carrying a silver pitcher approached him. "As requested, sir," the elf declared handing him the wide pitcher.  
  
"What's this?" Spike stared down at the pitcher in confusion as he took it out of the elf's hands.  
  
"Blood, sir," the elf answered, "of a boar killed by our hunters just a short while ago."  
  
Spike shook his head in confusion, "Requested by who?"  
  
The elf's eyes glanced behind Spike and then he began to leave, "By him." Spike turned around to see Xander staring at him and the two made eye contact for a short while. In that small amount of time they shared a 'thank you' and 'you're welcome' that would never be mentioned or thought of again. Then Xander turned around and walked into his tent, leaving Spike to his meal.  
  
Spike peered down into the opening of the pitcher at the red liquid and could feel its warmth. "Didn't your hair used to be completely white?" a voice called from behind him. Spike turned to see Merry and Pippin standing a few yards away next to a bush with their hands in their pockets. They watched the vampire with curiosity.  
  
Spike turned towards the pitcher and realized he could see his own reflection in the highly polished silver. Most likely, he thought, another perk of being in the alternate dimension. He closely gazed at his reflection, paying attention to his hair, and saw that sure enough it was losing its platinum blonde color at its roots. His un-gelled hair curled at its ends and he brushed it back, failing at the attempt to return it to a style that was long gone.  
  
"Yeah," he finally declared with a tired snicker as he looked away from the pitcher, "it was once upon a time." He turned towards the hobbits, "All the things you've got in your world, peroxide isn't one of them."  
  
He put the pitcher down on the rock beside him, not feeling comfortable drinking with the hobbits standing nearby watching him. They turned to each other, and then turned back towards the vampire, idly beating around a topic.  
  
"What's on your mind, mates?" Spike asked, sitting back as the voices continued to sing.  
  
Pippin glanced back at Merry, and then began carefully, "What you did back in the mines... for us..."  
  
The words timidly faded away as Merry declared, "Tell him, Pip."  
  
"I am telling him," Pippin replied.  
  
"No, you're not," Merry countered.  
  
Pippin answered, "Am too—"  
  
"Would you two pillocks get on with it?" Spike interrupted tiredly. There was little tension in his voice however, as the two hobbits turned back to him and Pippin began again.  
  
"Sorry," he replied. "We just... wanted to say... thank you."  
  
The two words rang in Spike's ears as he looked up at them, completely stunned. "Say what?" he answered, continuing his perplexed gaze.  
  
"Thank you," Merry repeated, "for saving us."  
  
The vampire was speechless and stared at them awkwardly, before finally answering simply and casually. "Right," he replied. "You don't need to thank me."  
  
"Why not?" Merry asked. "You helped out like anyone, didn't you?"  
  
"Heroes get thanked," Spike answered with a bit of a grin. "If you're lookin' for one, there's a nancy boy that lives in Los Angeles. Yay high. Lots of hair gel. Broods a lot." Spike shook his head, "I'm no hero."  
  
Merry and Pippin stared at each other until Pippin finally replied, "You are to us." Spike looked at them, stunned again, and could say nothing more. Merry and Pippin turned away from him with a nod and then went back into their tent. Spike watched them go with humility in his eyes as he glanced back to his pitcher and took a much needed sip.  
  
Buffy walked over to the pond to see Boromir sitting on a thick root of a tree, staring down into the water with a distraught expression. "Take some rest," Aragorn announced, as he approached them from behind. Aragorn stood next to Buffy as they gazed down at Boromir, "These borders are well-protected."  
  
Boromir shook his head, "I will find no rest here." Buffy gazed at him as he softly explained, "I heard her voice inside my head."  
  
"Yeah," Buffy nodded kindly with a bit of a smile, "I think she gets off doing that."  
  
"She spoke of my father and the fall of Gondor," Boromir looked up at them with worry in his eyes. Buffy's smile faded as she observed the fear in his blue eyes. "She said to me," Boromir added, clearly disturbed, "'Even now there is hope left.' But I cannot see it." He shook his head, disheartened, "It is long since we had any hope."  
  
Buffy sat down beside him with concern in her eyes as Aragorn stood near the water, listening carefully as Boromir continued, "My father is a noble man. But his rule is failing. And, our–our people lose faith. He looks to me to make things right, and I-I would do it. I would see the glory of Gondor restored." He said with a slight scoff as he glared up at Aragorn, "Have you ever seen it, Aragorn?" He reminisced with pleasure, "The White Tower of Ecthelion. Glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver. Its banners caught high in the morning breeze. Have you ever been called home by the clear ringing of silver trumpets?"  
  
"I've seen the White City," Aragorn answered simply, "long ago."  
  
"One day," Boromir declared with hope, "our paths will lead us there." Aragorn stared at him expressionlessly for a few moments before he returned a simple nod that lacked the hope that Boromir had. Aragorn turned and walked away from them, retreating to his own solitude. Buffy watched him go and could understand his emotions.  
  
"Don't take it personally," Buffy declared, turning to Boromir. "I think it kinda scares him. His destiny."  
  
Boromir shook his head in confusion, "Most would give anything to have his destiny."  
  
"That's easy to say at first," Buffy answered with a weary sigh, "but then find out you're at the end of a millions-of-years-old tradition of dying young, then you tend to wig."  
  
"I must admit," Boromir replied, "you are a much stronger warrior than I gave you credit for."  
  
"Ah, it's nothing," Buffy smiled. "Water over the bridge... or under the bridge, or beyond— Ah, I still can't remember what it is."  
  
"It is something," he nodded with a grateful grin. "My people would love to see someone like you leading them."  
  
She let out a small laugh as she thought about it, "Ha, Queen Buffy—" Her words were abruptly cut off by her own thoughts. He didn't mean like a queen, she assured herself. Right? Buffy looked over at Boromir who continued to stare at her with a smile. No way, she thought. No way could he possibly— She noticed the black cloak that she was still wearing, wrapped around her tightly.  
  
"Oh," Buffy replied, staring up at Boromir again, her mind in a panic. "I-I'm sure, you're home is really nice." She struggled to think of something to say, "A-and all of the people are... really nice, too. Like my home. And my people." Buffy kindly and carefully continued, "Like my mom, and my sister, and my... boyfriend."  
  
Boromir recognized the last word as his brows went up slightly. He turned away from her towards the pond, nodding his head, "You're... betrothed."  
  
"Kind of," Buffy answered gently, hoping she didn't do too much damage. She apologetically added, "I'm in love with him."  
  
She let out a small sigh as he responded, "This is a good thing." Boromir turned to her with a half-smile, "He is blessed more than he could know." She sympathetically returned a warm smile as he stood up and walked towards his tent, holding a hint of rejection in his eyes. Buffy watched him leave with a frown on her face as she looked down at the cloak and rested her chin on her hand.  
  
Alone inside of one of the tents, Willow lay on a cot with her head turned towards the wall as silent tears fell down her cheeks and stained the pillow. Up until then, everything – the Ring, the people, the places – had been all just a dream. Something she would easily wake up from when the time was right and she would find herself home with the woman she loved.  
  
It was a game. A grand adventure like the ones she used to read about for English assignments in high school. This was not the same. These were real people with real emotions and real mortality. Her home, her world, Tara – it all seemed so distant and far away now.  
  
Her heart slowly began to break in her chest and her tears became more frequent. Anguish filled her voice as she let out a painful whisper, "Tara..."

* * *

Tara lifted her head inside the hospital, hearing her name softly whispered. Her face was streaked with tears and her head had been buried in her hands as she sat in the hospital chair weeping quietly. Her hairs began to stand on end and she swore she could've heard Willow's voice in the air.  
  
Tara wiped her face as her eyes batted back and forth hoping that maybe.... Maybe...  
  
She heard approaching footsteps and looked down the hall to see Giles slowly walking towards her with an ice pack to his head. "Giles!" she jumped out of her seat and rushed to him. "You're awake!"  
  
"Yes," Giles nodded, staring down at her. Tiny red cuts were streaked across the right side of his face from flying glass and his face had several bruises. "Leave it to me to get knocked unconscious," Giles scoffed groggily. "Where are the others?"  
  
"Anya," Tara began, then stopped, "well, she... uh, took a little walk. And Dawn is okay, she found us at the Magic Box."  
  
"Riley?" Giles asked with deep concern, glaring up at her.  
  
"They think he's going to live," Tara answered sadly. "He's in surgery now. He's got bruised organs and not to mention a bunch of broken ribs. But everything else is just sprains and cuts."  
  
"Thank heavens," Giles shook his head with worry, "when I saw him get hit, I thought for sure—"  
  
"I know," Tara nodded, "me too."  
  
"How much time do we have left?" Giles asked, putting his glasses on.  
  
Tara answered, "It's almost five."  
  
Giles sighed and glanced down at the floor, hope draining from his eyes. "Very well," he then declared, "we must start over."  
  
"Giles," Tara reached for him as he began to move down the hallway, "you have to rest."  
  
"There isn't time to rest," Giles answered. "We must start over from the beginning and try again—"  
  
"Maybe not," a voice said from behind. They turned to see Dawn standing in the hall with an expression of determination.

* * *

Buffy's eyes opened to the darkness of the tent she was in. She couldn't tell whether it was the crickets chirping outside that woke her up, or just Xander's snoring. She sat up in her cot and gazed around in the dark to see Willow sleeping on her right, Xander sleeping on her left, with Sam, Merry and Pippin.  
  
_Frodo,_ she thought with a slight gasp. She rolled out of her cot and quietly stepped over the snoring hobbits, and it felt like high school all over again. Except with hobbits. She pushed the déjà vu feeling out of her mind as she exited the tent. Buffy gazed around at the peacefully quiet Lothlórien setting, to see Spike sleeping on the ground near the tree.  
  
Glancing down at the ground, she noticed a trail of footprints seemingly coming from two rather large, bare feet. Buffy looked back at the tent, and then followed the footprints through the trees.  
  
She slowly stepped down a long flight of stairs that ran alongside a crystal clear stream of water. Buffy could faintly hear voices at the bottom of the stairs, but her vision was obscured by ferns and tree branches. She could distinguish the voice of the woman elf, Galadriel, as it grew to a loud, thundering voice. Bright, blue light beamed out from the bottom of the stairs and shined the leaves and branches of the trees, followed by a gust of wind.  
  
Suddenly, all was quiet and still once again. Buffy continued down the stairs and stopped in the middle to see Galadriel and Frodo standing apart from each other as Galadriel breathed hard, trying to catch her breath.  
  
"I pass the test," the lovely woman whispered as she looked away from Frodo towards the ground. "I will diminish... and go into the West ...and remain Galadriel."  
  
"I cannot do this alone," Frodo shook his head, his blue eyes full of dread.  
  
Galadriel turned to him with a warm expression as she answered, "You are a Ring-bearer, Frodo. To bear a Ring of Power is to be alone." Buffy let out a small breath of air, feeling as if Galadriel was addressing her directly. She gazed down at Frodo with sympathy in her eyes as Galadriel explained, "This task was appointed to you. And if you do not find a way... no one will."  
  
Frodo thought deeply to himself, finally replying after a few moments, "Then I know what I must do. It's just..." He let the words fade away as Buffy listened carefully, "...I'm afraid to do it."  
  
Galadriel stared at him kindly and bent down, whispering to him, "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." He stared at her intently, then closed the Ring in his little hand, turning away and leaving Galadriel behind. Buffy watched as he disappeared amongst the trees, heading back towards the tents. Both of the women watched him go in silence.  
  
Buffy slowly began to turn around, leaving as quietly as she possibly could. "Your heart is kind, Slayer," she heard Galadriel announced, and she froze, turning back towards the woman. Galadriel still had her head turned away, staring at the path Frodo had taken.  
  
"Right," Buffy nodded with a half-smile as she began to walk down the stairs towards Galadriel, "I forgot you elf people have good hearing." Galadriel turned to her in silence as Buffy walked down to the ground where she was standing. Between them was a small pedestal with a silver bowl of water, and behind Galadriel was a fountain where water from the spring came down into a tiny pond.  
  
Moonlight continued to shine down on them as Buffy asked casually, "So, why were you guys having a pajama party in the middle of the night?"  
  
Galadriel gazed up at her with a smile, "He looked into the mirror."  
  
Buffy looked over at the pedestal with the bowl of water on top of it, "You mean your birdbath?"  
  
Galadriel's eyes held on Buffy as she answered, "He saw things that have not yet come to pass."  
  
"Like what?" she asked.  
  
"I cannot tell you, Slayer," Galadriel replied, "for it is his destiny."  
  
"How do you know I'm the Slayer?" Buffy asked. "More of that freaky mind-reading trick? 'Cause, I have to tell you, that's kinda disturbing."  
  
"Your friends are searching for you," Galadriel answered as she leisurely began to pace. "But there is a price for all things. They have paid a price for trying to return you to your dimension."  
  
"A price," Buffy repeated with concern. "They're okay, right? Nothing's happened to them."  
  
"Something has happened," she replied. "But they continue to live." Buffy's face was clouded with worry as she added, "I know now why they care so much for you. Your heart aches for people you have no right to know. You continue on this quest even though it does not affect your fate."  
  
Buffy stared at her silently, and then responded, "I want to help."  
  
"You feel it is part of your destiny," Galadriel declared. "That is something your friends cannot understand. You share something with the Halfling that no one in your world could comprehend."  
  
"I don't want to see him get hurt," Buffy denied her claim, shaking her head. "When we first got here, these elves tried to shoot us. If it wasn't for Frodo and Aragorn—"  
  
"They stood by your side," Galadriel nodded, "but in your heart you know that is not why you wish to involve yourself here." Buffy looked up at the beautiful woman uncomfortably as she explained, "In your dimension, you bear the weight of your world. Your destiny separates you from the ones you love. It has made you hard. Alone."  
  
Buffy glanced down at the ground while she continued, "Now you venture into this place and find that you are not alone. There are others who are also destined to save their world. You feel for them because you have felt their burden." Galadriel added as she glanced up at her, "For so long you have wanted someone else to support the weight of your destiny. Now you would not wish that kind of pain on anyone. That is why when the door appears, you will not be ready for it."  
  
Buffy grimaced with confusion, "Huh?"  
  
"As I said before," Galadriel explained as she picked up a silver pitcher like the one Spike was given, "there is a price for all things." She walked over to the fountain and scooped water from it, then walked over to the silver bowl and poured the water in. "You have a destiny, Slayer. And it does not lie here."  
  
Hesitantly, Buffy stepped up to the 'birdbath' and peered down at the clear water. Galadriel announced, "By coming into this dimension, you have changed its course. For this alone, one in the Fellowship will die."  
  
Buffy looked up at Galadriel suddenly, "What?" Her anger began to mount, "But one already has died! Why should there be another?"  
  
"It is the price," Galadriel answered. Buffy stared down at the rippling water as light began to emanate from it. Inside of the glowing water, there were lines... shapes... and finally there were pictures.  
  
_An orc. However, this was bigger and uglier than any of the orcs she had seen in the mines. It had black hair held back behind its skull and black skin with wretched teeth. Strangely, it stood in the daylight. She peered down carefully into the water and deciphered that it was in a wooded area in the shade of trees. Its face was covered with a large, white handprint. It roared like a lion and tightly held back an arrow in its bow.  
_  
The water became rippled once again as the image faded away. The lines and shapes reappeared and made up a new image.  
  
_Aragorn. He was bloody-mouthed with his dark hair in his face as he stood in the same, wooded area. The white-faced orc slammed him easily against a tree and he lay back against it groggily.  
  
The white-faced orc picked up a sword from the ground. Buffy recognized it as Aragorn's Ranger sword. With a mighty roar, the orc pulled back the sword and thrust it directly into Aragorn's chest. A twisted expression of horrible pain came across Aragorn's face as he glanced down at the sword impaling him to the tree. The orc ripped the bloody sword out and released Aragorn as he dropped to his knees and fell dead to the ground._  
  
"Aragorn!" Buffy screamed as the image faded away and the water stopped glowing. She breathed heavily in terror as she glanced up at Galadriel, who watched her carefully.  
  
Buffy glared at her, thinking in her mind, "[_I can stop it_.]"  
  
"[_Can you?_]" Galadriel stared at her. "[_True. There are some things in this world that can be undone. Then there are some things in this world that are changed forever._]"  
  
"[_I didn't ask to come here_!]" Buffy thought. "[_It's not... fair... for them_.]" Her eyes were full of guilt and misery, "[_He doesn't deserve this. They don't deserve this._]"  
  
"[_I feel your pain, Buffy_,]" Galadriel answered mentally. "[_I know it is not what you wanted._]"  
  
"Please," Buffy pleaded in her voice, "don't let any of them die..."  
  
"It is not my place," Galadriel shook her head, "even if it is my wish."  
  
Buffy declared, "But you know it's not meant to be—!"  
  
"Can you accept what is meant to be?" she asked and Buffy was silent.

* * *

"I came to the shop because I thought of something," Dawn declared, as she, Giles and Tara stood in the hospital hallway. "We were thinking about Cloutier's message all wrong."  
  
"I think that's obvious," Giles responded. "Clearly, we must have had the wrong people when he said a champion, a demon, a loving heart and a bearer of power."  
  
"Not the wrong people," Dawn shook her head. "It's all one person."  
  
"What?" Tara declared, turning towards Giles. "What does she mean?" Dawn pulled a silver cross necklace out of her pocket and held it up for them to see. "What does that have to do with anything?"  
  
"I remember this," Giles answered, taking the cross in his hands. "Buffy used to wear it in high school."  
  
"Wait a second," Tara shook her head, "we're looking for someone who has power, a loving heart, who's a demon and—"  
  
"A champion," Giles affirmed, thinking to himself. He stared down at the necklace, then raised his head and declared with certainty, "Angel." 


	10. Heir

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).  
  
'--------' Indicates flashback. '====' indicates end of flashback.

**10: Heir**

Angel, clad in a dark, grayish-green button shirt and black pants, stood in the middle of his office inside the Hyperion Hotel holding the telephone receiver to his ear, still unable to comprehend what was going on around him. He swallowed hard as Giles' talked to him over the phone with his familiar British accent and textbook vocabulary.  
  
"Are you getting this?" Giles declared on the other line, pulling Angel's attention back to the conversation. "Angel?"  
  
"I-I'm still not sure what's going on," Angel answered, finally. "Giles, you're telling me that Buffy, Willow, Xander and – of all people – Spike are in another dimension—"  
  
"And there's only one way to get them out," Giles replied, cutting him off with a nervous tone. He stood in the middle of the hospital at a pay phone while Tara, Anya and Dawn stood anxiously nearby. "We believe it concerns you."  
  
"How? What does this have to do with me?" Angel asked, still confused.  
  
Giles declared with worry, "You're probably supposed to fight the Dark Lord."  
  
"Wha..." Angel answered, shaking his head, "What Dark Lord? And how did they get there in the first place?"  
  
"The trance!" Giles exclaimed, breathing heavily. "Cloutier. 'Pull the curtain back.' Cloutier told us about a Champion, a Demon, a Loving Heart and a Bearer of Power. You fit the description of all of those. You're probably needed as a balance—"  
  
"How does that work—?"  
  
"Angel," Giles breathed with a calmer voice that revealed his desperation, "if you do not succeed in getting Buffy back before the sun sets, we'll lose her forever." The watcher heard nothing but silence on the other end.  
  
Angel finally answered with a determined tone as everything became clear to him, "I'm already there."

* * *

Galadriel was bathed in warm sunlight as she stood on the shores of Lórien with her motherly hand extended towards the river as three canoes floated by. Four members of the Fellowship sat in each of the wooden canoes: Buffy, Aragorn, Frodo and Sam in the first, Boromir, Spike, Merry and Pippin in the second, and Legolas, Gimli, Willow and Xander in the third.  
  
Buffy sat in the front of her canoe with an oar in hands while Aragorn propelled the boat from the back, Frodo and Sam between them. She looked to her left to see Galadriel standing at the water's edge, clad in a white, shimmering robe. Buffy's eyes once again locked with Galadriel's deep blue eyes and then she could hear the elf-witch's voice in her head, remembering the last meeting between them before the Fellowship boarded the boats.  
  
---------  
  
"[_Listen to your heart, Slayer_,]" Galadriel had said to Buffy by way of telepathy. "[_You are wise beyond your years. You will know what to do when your time comes. Fear not the Beast or the one who does not belong. When your world is uncertain, believe in your love and your purpose shall be made clear_.]"  
  
=====  
  
Buffy continued to stare at Galadriel, unsure of what she had meant. She had once believed that she could overlook the small things she did not understand about this world, just as she had overlooked the things in her world that made no sense. Her heart saddened and her mind grew grim. There was nothing in either world that made sense to her anymore.  
  
Boromir could not stand to look at Galadriel or at Buffy, for that matter. During their stay in Lothlórien, Buffy and Boromir had shared another conversation.  
  
----------  
  
_"And when you return," Boromir asked her as they stood in the middle of the heavenly forest, "what is to become of us?"  
  
"Us?" she repeated in confusion.  
  
"Of you and I," Boromir explained, bearing his heart to her. "Of our—"  
  
"Friendship," Buffy finished with a half-smile that took pity on him. She regretfully declared, "We'll always be friends."  
  
"Companions?" Boromir tried hard to keep his smile from fading.  
  
She slowly nodded her head apologetically, "There's no other way."_  
  
=====  
  
_There's no other way_, Boromir thought to himself, repeating it over and over again. _No other way._

* * *

Hours passed of silent rowing down the mighty river, leading to their next destination and Willow finally stirred uncomfortably. "Oh," Willow breathed uneasily as she sat next to Gimli in Legolas' boat.  
  
"Is everything all right, young lass?" Gimli asked.  
  
"This might be a bad time to mention this," Willow weakly declared, "but I get sea sick."  
  
"Oh, my," Gimli replied deeply. "That's quite unfortunate. That is one of the good things about dwarfs. Dwarfs never fall under illness by sea. Or by land." The dwarf laughed whole-heartedly while Willow clutched her stomach and clenched her teeth. "One could go up... or down... or side to side..."  
  
"Oh!" Willow gagged as her face turned colors and she clutched the edge of the canoe.  
  
In Boromir's boat, Merry and Pippin sat in between Boromir and Spike, Spike taking the bow and Boromir manning the stern. Both man and demon grimaced as they steadily rowed down the river, keeping up with the other two boats. They had turned it into a silent rowing match, trying to see who would tire first.  
  
Boromir's chest and torso heaved, his side beginning to ache, as he pulled the oar through the water. "Givin' out, old man?" Spike asked as he grinned at the front of the canoe, not casting a backwards glance at his human shipmate.  
  
"No," Boromir glared up at the back of Spike's head, spite in his eyes. "Are you beginning to tire, demon?" Spike's temper shifted upwards a notch as Boromir said the last word, spitting it out at him.  
  
_Demon_, Spike thought. No matter what he did that's all he would ever be. That's all he was to the man behind him. That's all he was to the Scoobies. Spike glanced over to his right into Aragorn's boat. That's all he would ever be to Buffy.  
  
Spike watched Buffy as she steadily rowed down the river at the front of the boat, her lovely face clouded with worry. She had been racking her brain with some dire problem since the day they came to Lórien. He had so many times wondered what things painfully twisted her mind and wished that she would let him give her comfort.  
  
Something that Soldier Boy obviously can't handle, he thought to himself. The thought of Riley made his stomach turn with disgust. Buffy would turn him away and run to someone like Captain Cardboard every night? Spike could love her in ways that Riley couldn't begin to understand. What was it going to take to get her to see that? What did he have to do?  
  
It was all hopeless. Stupid and hopeless. He knew in his heart that Buffy would never give him a second glance next to Miss Iowa. Not unless...  
  
Spike looked at the person sitting behind Buffy in the canoe. _Frodo._ The hobbit's eyes were clouded with his own problems, the weight of the Ring pushing down on him. He would crack under the torture. Spike was sure of it because he'd seen it in so many of his victims before. There's no way that the Halfling could hold on to that Ring forever.  
  
Spike could keep the Ring. He figured he could take it to Mordor himself, without the Fellowship. What would Buffy think of him then? The thought of Buffy convinced him fully. _That's exactly what I'll do..._ he thought. Should he wait for the opportune moment when Frodo gives up the Ring?  
  
_No..._ he mused, as a smile stretched across his face, _I'll take it from him myself._ Frodo was a hobbit, not a human and most likely immune to the protection of Spike's chip. Spike's stomach began to grumble as hunger clawed at him. Perhaps it would have been better if he'd never had the blood in Lothlórien, because now it burned in his body.  
  
He wanted something more.  
  
Spike's eyes were practically chained to Frodo as he watched the hobbit reach down for the chain around his neck. Spike saw the small sparkle of the Ring shining in the sunlight. The Ring... he thought, now beginning to wonder if he should keep it for himself. _The Ring..._  
  
The vampire could hear a dark, twisted, evil voice whisper in the back of his mind.  
_  
"William..."_  
  
"Ahh!" Spike called out, nearly dropping the oar as he clutched his skull in pain. The chip fired and seared inside his brain, sharply scolding him for his malicious thoughts. Boromir, Merry and Pippin looked up in confusion as they watched the vampire twist in agony.  
  
"Bloody hell!" Spike spat in disgust as the pain slowly began to recede.  
  
"Don't wear yourself out," Boromir grinned as he continued to row. "Might let the Halflings take over the job for you?" Spike looked back at him with a hateful stare and hastily turned around, shoving the oar back into the water and forcefully pushing it through.  
  
"Man," Xander breathed tiredly as he rowed at the front of Legolas' boat. His muscles ached and throbbed as he dripped with sweat. "This looked so much easier on _Dawson's Creek_. What kind of ungodly network would lie to us with a show like that?"  
  
Willow gasped suddenly as she sat up straight in the boat.  
  
"What?" Xander exclaimed. "You think someone can look that pretty while they're rowing? I'd bet money they were tugging James around in that damn boat—"  
  
"No," Willow breathed, unnerved, "not that." Her mind was racing as she thought to herself.  
  
"Something's disturbed you," Legolas declared, staring at her with intense blue eyes. Willow and Xander both stared up at him incredulously.  
  
"Thanks," said Xander, nodding.  
  
"What's wrong, dear?" Gimli asked.  
  
Willow breathed heavily, "I heard Tara..."

* * *

"It's working, Giles," Tara declared, standing in the middle of Giles' living room with he and Dawn. "I-I think I was able to contact her. But only for a second, then... I lost her again."  
  
"That's fine," Giles nodded. "At least we know she's still able enough to make a connection."  
  
Anya marched through the door carrying a thick book with a partially-charred cover. "I've got it!" she declared, handing the Middle Earth book to Giles. "It was on fire, but I think its okay. I used your silk blazer that you keep in your office to put it out."  
  
Giles looked up at her as she said it, "U-uh, v-very well. Quick thinking." He went to the kitchen for a drink, handing the book to Dawn. "Now would you mind explaining, y-your theory one more time?"  
  
Dawn took the book and opened it, flipping past the partially-burned pages until she found a picture of Sauron in his black armor. "That's definitely him," Tara declared, pointing at the drawing.  
  
"That doesn't make any sense," Dawn replied as she read the text beneath the picture. "This says that he was defeated a long time ago and can't become corporeal again."  
  
"He was corporeal once, though?" Anya remarked. "Maybe that's the version of Sauron that came through the portal in the Magic Box."  
  
"What you mean like an alternate reality version?" Dawn answered. "That's insane."  
  
"Trust me," Anya declared. "I know all about alternate realities. I made them everyday. That's how I got into this mortal body in the first place, remember?"  
  
Tara looked over into Giles' kitchen as he sipped a glass of brandy, "Giles, is it possible that we could've fought a version of Sauron from the past?"  
  
He swallowed the beverage hard and nodded, "Yes, I-I suppose it is. Portals can be outlets to any number of realities and time periods. Th-the very ingredients of a portal revolve around incongruity in a dimension. As a consequence, many different anomalies can take place – time displacement being one of them."  
  
"Time displacement," Tara repeated, thinking deeply.  
  
Dawn continued to read the text inside the book, "It says here that Sauron was defeated by a man named Isildur, the son of the King at the time. He used the broken blade of some sword called Narsil and cut off a bunch of Sauron's fingers."  
  
Tara looked over to Dawn and asked, "Does it say anything specific about the person who can wield Narsil?"  
  
"Well," she began, "it says that only the heir of the throne can wield the Sword of the King."  
  
"In their world," Tara nodded then glanced over to Giles, her mind sparkling with contemplation, "but what about it our world? Angel may be the one who's supposed to get our friends back, but what happens if Sauron comes through the portal again? Maybe Angel's supposed to fight him."  
  
"Well, that would make sense," Giles declared, coming out of the kitchen and walking into the living room. Giles put the puzzle together in his mind, "Isildur slew Sauron."  
  
"Which would make him a Champion," Dawn declared.  
  
"Yes, but he was also responsible for not destroying the Ring," Giles replied, "if I remember correctly."  
  
"Can you blame him?" Anya shrugged. "He's only human."  
  
"Exactly," he declared. "Each of us, as humans, has our own... metaphorical demons that we must face." Giles paced across the living room, "Isildur was heir to the King – a significant power on its own. And until it was corrupted—"  
  
"He must have had a loving heart," Dawn finished.  
  
"So what you're saying is," Anya replied, "Angel is this dimension's equivalent to the heir to the throne?"  
  
"Basically, yes," Giles responded.  
  
"Which means he can wield Narsil," Tara declared.  
  
"But Narsil was destroyed," Dawn said. "It was smashed into a bunch of pieces. Unless they've got a Radio Shack, I'd say that Light Saber's pretty much fried."  
  
"That's where a time displacement spell comes in," Tara replied with a hopeful expression, and then she turned to Giles. "If Sauron can come in from a different time, so can Narsil. I just need to find the right spell that'll bring Narsil, hopefully unbroken, into this dimension where Angel can use it against him."  
  
"Splendid," Giles smiled, putting his glass down. He turned towards the grandfather clock near the entrance to the living room as its minute hand moved another notch on its golden face. His smile faded as he read the time on the clock: 6:43. "We haven't much time," Giles declared gravely.  
  
They turned towards the front door at the sound of a knock. Giles announced subtly before he moved to the door, "He's here."

* * *

Most of the Fellowship gathered in front of a fireplace on the riverbank, their three boats grounded in front of them. "They're trying to contact us," Willow declared, sitting in between Buffy and Xander, the three of them separated from the rest of the Fellowship by several feet. "I could feel Tara trying to speak to me," she smiled. "I could feel her with me... I could even smell her."  
  
"Which must be great," Xander nodded, "but what does this all mean?"  
  
"I think it means that the walls between our world and that world are getting a whole lot weaker," Buffy declared with a sigh.  
  
"Which means we're coming close to our window of opportunity," Willow explained. "If we haven't already missed it."  
  
Xander said to Buffy, "What do you mean 'our world and that world?' Isn't 'that' world ours to begin with?"  
  
Buffy looked up at Xander, not knowing what to say. What Galadriel had said to her was beginning to come true. A shiver ran up her spine as she glanced over at Aragorn. "Right," she breathed uneasily. "That's what I meant."  
  
From across the riverbank, Boromir dragged the last boat out of the water. He glanced across the way towards the fire and caught sight of Buffy. His emotions were a mixture of pleasantness and pain, but just the sight of her forced a smile on his face.  
  
_She's looking at something_, he noted. _Not at me_. Curiously, he followed her point of view to the man pulling one of the other boats out of the water.  
  
_Aragorn.  
_  
Boromir looked back at Buffy as she watched the heir to the throne intently, her mind sinking deeper and deeper in ambivalent indecision. He immediately felt rejected, even worse than he had when Buffy had told him about Riley. This was far more than her loving someone else. She loved him. She loved the King.  
  
Boromir stood up hastily and stomped off into the woods, not being able to watch her look at him. A single phrase repeated in his mind like a broken record. There's no other way, he said to himself. No other way.  
  
"What can we do to help?" Xander asked Willow. "Something to make us more... findable?"  
  
"I'm not sure," Willow shrugged. "I know there's a spell to make our auras more prevalent, but I don't know how to do it. I would consult Giles' books, but you know, with the whole other dimension and all."  
  
"Maybe we can come up with something," Xander suggested. "Little herbs, little powder, little chanting... bake, shake, and walah! Our auras are shiner than the top of Dr. Phil's head."  
  
"There is something I know," Willow answered. "But it involves the bones of a Karthop demon and a whole lotta newt."  
  
"Ugh, please," Xander's face twisted, thinking of the flying limbs in Moria. "I don't wanna hear that word 'bone' ever again." A small smile curved onto his face, "Well, maybe not ever..."  
  
Willow gave him a glare, "Go see if there's something to eat."  
  
"Now, that I can do," Xander nodded. "No use trying to think on an empty stomach." He stood up and walked over towards the fire where Sam was sitting by himself with a downtrodden expression. Xander stopped and stared hesitantly, then walked over and sat down beside him. "What's wrong, buddy?" he asked.  
  
"Oh," Sam looked up at him, snapping out of his trance, "nothing, Mr. Xander."  
  
"No, seriously," Xander replied, "what's up? Besides most of the things and people in your world."  
  
Sam stared up at him, trying to smile, then shyly began, "It's just... This has all been such a long journey..." Sam shook his head, "I didn't realize how hard it would be to bear."  
  
"That's what I said after watching _Dances with Wolves_," Xander declared. "But I know what you mean. Thinking about backing out?"  
  
"Oh, no," Sam declared strongly. "Not for anything. It's just... I don't..." He let the words fade away as he stared around at the different people in the Fellowship. "I want to help, but I don't know how useful I am. Everyone contributes something, and... well, I just wish I could contribute more."  
  
The sentence trailed off with sadness as Xander's smile faded. He stared at him seriously, "Listen up close. There's nothing embarrassing or shameful about being a sideman. I happen to know that very well." Sam looked up at Xander and was slightly surprised by the depth in his voice.  
  
"People like you and me, Sam," Xander continued, "they need us. And I mean really. We don't have superpowers and we're not chosen, but we give them something that they don't have. Relief. And not just the comic kind."  
  
Sam and Xander looked over at Buffy and Willow as Xander declared, "We may not be the ones who save the world, but we rescue the ones who do." He turned to Sam and looked him in the eyes, "And that is a fight that we don't ever back out of."  
  
Spike's eyes opened wide after having drifted off into a nap while sitting against a fallen stone pillar. The vampire gazed around at the wooded setting and went through a checklist in his mind. Buffy and Red were over by a rock, King Arthur was chatting with Goldilocks, little Rob Zombie and Xander were babysitting the three kids by the fire.  
  
Spike stopped and pressed rewind. There were only three hobbits around. Frodo was missing. _Had to be the important one_, Spike rolled his eyes. With a sigh, he sat up to go tell Buffy or someone else who'd help when he realized who else was missing.  
  
_Boromir._


	11. The Price

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).

**11: The Price**

Frodo strolled between the trees of the woods not far from the riverbank where the rest of the Fellowship rested. He walked passed a gigantic stone face, broken and toppled over on its side in between two moss-covered trees. He stared at the fallen head of the statue and heard Boromir's voice behind him.  
  
"None of us should wander alone," Boromir declared as he bent down and gathered sticks in his arms. Frodo turned towards him warily as he added, "You, least of all. So much depends on you." Boromir stood up and stared at the Ring-bearer. For a moment he wondered if the hobbit was aware of just how much power he possessed at that point. So much power...  
  
"Frodo?" Boromir said, staring at him as he avoided eye contact. Gently, Boromir stepped towards him, "I know why you seek solitude. You suffer. I see it day by day. You sure you do not suffer needlessly?"  
  
Frodo glanced up at him, his blue eyes full of worry. "There are other ways, Frodo," Boromir smiled easily, thinking again of the power of the Ring. "Other paths that we might take."  
  
"I know what you would say," Frodo declared strongly, staring up at him. "And it would seem like wisdom but for the warning in my heart."  
  
"Warning?" Boromir repeated. "Against what?" He inched closer to Frodo as the hobbit slowly backed away. The Ring forced thoughts of Buffy into Boromir's mind. "We're all afraid, Frodo," he softly answered. "But to let that fear drive us, to destroy what hope we have... don't you see that is madness?"  
  
Boromir walked closer to him, backing him in a corner as Frodo declared, "There is no other way." He glared down at him as Buffy's voice, having said nearly the exact same thing, rang in his head. Buffy, who would not choose him, but would choose someone as powerful as the King. Boromir's expression grew livid as he slammed down the timber in his hands.  
  
"I ask only for the strength to defend my people!" he spat. Frodo's heart skipped a beat as the wood hit the ground, now fearing for his safety.

* * *

Light appeared in the center of Giles' living room, Angel standing before it as Giles, Tara, Dawn and Anya stood behind him. "It's working!" Anya shouted as wind began to blow through Giles' living room.  
  
Giles turned to Tara and gave her a nod as she kneeled down on the floor with her eyes closed tightly and began to chant, mumbling rapidly in a foreign language. He looked up from Tara and turned to the grandfather clock: 7:10.

* * *

Spike raced through the woods, brown leaves crunching beneath his feet. He rounded a corner around a fallen statue head to see Boromir on top of Frodo several feet away, Boromir reaching for the hobbit's neck.  
  
"Give it to me!" Boromir angrily ordered. "Give it to me!" Spike vamped out and raced over to him, delivering a swift uppercut to Boromir's jaw, knocking him off the Halfling. He ignored the burning pain in his skull and concentrated on protecting Frodo.  
  
Hero, he thought to himself, remembering Merry and Pippin's conversation with him.  
  
"You know in my world," Spike declared as he stared down at Boromir, "we got laws against that sort of thing, mate." Boromir glared up at him spitefully and pushed himself to a stand as Spike threatened, "You wanna pick on someone your own size?"  
  
"He'll take the Ring to Sauron!" he barked. "He will betray us!"  
  
"I suppose you know a thing or two about that," Spike glared at him, not letting him move and inch. Boromir's expression suddenly changed and softened having now seen his error. Both of them heard the sound of leaves crunching in hurried footsteps leading away from them. They looked around to see Frodo nowhere in sight.

* * *

"Frodo?" Buffy called as she stared down at the hobbit as he lay on his back on the ground. He quickly scrambled to his feet, his eyes full of fear. "What's wrong?" she asked. "What happened?"  
  
Frodo looked up at her almost with relief as he nervously tried to answer, "I had to get away. The Ring, it—"  
  
"Where is the Ring?" Aragorn's voice boomed from behind them, sending Frodo into another panic.  
  
"Stay away!" Frodo shouted and he began to run off.  
  
"Wait, Frodo!" Buffy called after him and ran around a stone monument to meet him. He stopped as he saw her and she declared, "It's okay, I promise. We're not gonna hurt you." He calmed himself at that as Aragorn, now more cautiously and slowly, stepped towards him.  
  
"I swore to protect you," Aragorn shook his head, baffled by the hobbit's fear for him.  
  
"Can you protect me from yourself?" Frodo asked, giving him pause. Aragorn contemplated not only the Ring, but the weakness in his bloodline for it, beginning with Isildur and now ending with him. He stared down at the golden Ring in Frodo's tiny palm.  
  
Buffy watched guardedly as Aragorn walked towards him and kneeled down before him. He took Frodo's small hand in his own and closed it, concealing the Ring inside the hand of the Ring-bearer.  
  
"I would have gone with you to the end," Aragorn declared, staring into Frodo's relieved eyes. He pushed the hand away from him to Frodo's chest as he added, "Into the very fires of Mordor."  
  
Buffy stared down at them both as a warm smile stretched across her face, but then a thought came to her like a bolt of lightning. "Wait," she asked quickly, "Frodo, what were you trying to get away from?"  
  
Frodo turned to her and declared grimly with a hint of self-loathing in his voice, "The Ring has taken Boromir." Aragorn's expression changed suddenly as he heard the words and he and Buffy looked at each other gravely.  
  
The thought of Buffy turning Boromir away slammed into her skull like a freight train and she was overwhelmed with guilt. "Oh, no," she breathed, then turned on her heel and sped off through the forest.

* * *

Tara continued to kneel on Giles' hardwood floor, whispering her Latin chants as quickly as she could, her heart racing. Anya swallowed hard as she watched the light that dangled in midair in the center of the living room become a swirling, cloudy disc of bluish light. Dawn glanced over at Angel who stood before the vortex, stone-faced and ready for the arrival of anything that would dare stand in the way of getting Buffy back.  
  
"How's it coming?" Angel asked, turning to Giles.  
  
Giles nervously gazed down at Tara who obediently chanted away, "Come on, Tara. Come on..."

* * *

Xander and Willow ran through the thick trees until they spotted two figures standing and kneeling in a bright area next to a stone monument. "Aragorn! Frodo!" Xander called as he and Willow ran up to them.  
  
"Where's Buffy?" Willow asked fretfully.  
  
"She's gone to find Boromir," Frodo answered.  
  
"We have to find her fast," Xander exclaimed. "I think it's time—"  
  
"Frodo," Aragorn interrupted suddenly, staring down with worry, "go!" Aragorn jumped up to a stand as Frodo glanced down at Sting to see it glow a soft blue light.  
  
"Oh..." Xander bellowed, staring down at the short sword, "that would be so cool if it didn't mean we were going to die."  
  
"Run!" Aragorn ordered and Frodo bolted, turning away and running through the woods. Willow, Xander and Aragorn stared into a clearing just a few yards away from them as a small army of Uruk-hai slobbered and marched towards them with weapons drawn.  
  
"Damn," Xander shook his head, "these guys just keep gettin' uglier and uglier."  
  
The Ranger turned to Willow and Xander, "Protect the Ring-bearer."  
  
"What about you?" Willow asked, eyes wide with worry. Aragorn boldly ripped his sword from its sheath and placed it in front of his face, his blue eyes burning into the hideous face of his first victim across the clearing.  
  
"I know the drill," he declared.  
  
Xander and Willow stood still and gawked with dropped jaws as he marched by himself towards the Uruk-hai and took out the first one. "Oh, boy," Xander shook his head with a smile, "he's been Buffied." Willow grabbed Xander by the arm and they both raced off into the forest following Frodo.

* * *

Buffy ran through the forest like a speeding bullet as she leapt over boulders and fallen tree trunks. She ran over a tree-covered hill to see Spike and Boromir still facing off in front of a stone statue, both of them bloodied and bruised from fighting.  
  
Buffy grabbed both men and pulled them apart, throwing Spike against the stone face and Boromir against a tree. "We do not have time for Ring-warped testosterone right now!" she barked, berating both of them.  
  
They calmed themselves as they took in her words and wiped the blood off of their faces. "Frodo," Boromir began with a timid, guilt-ridden tone, "I... I tried... He ran..."  
  
"I know," Buffy declared, staring down at him.  
  
"We need to find him," Boromir replied quickly, then stared up at her with an assuring expression. "You need to find him. To protect him—" He couldn't bring himself to say it. He turned away from Buffy at last, not being able to look into her eyes. He wondered for a moment if those eyes brought out guilt and remorse in every man that loved her.

* * *

Angel glanced down quickly as the ground beneath his feet shifted. The floorboards began to crack and move as an earthquake rocked Giles' apartment building. The swirling vortex began to pick up speed as the clock struck 7:13.

* * *

The monstrous Uruk-hai leader, Lurtz, stopped in front of his militia. He peered around the wooded area as dozens of Uruk-hai raced past him, filling the woods as the sunlight shined down on his oil-colored skin. He was from head to hair to armor, completely clad in black, save for the white handprint painted across his face. Lurtz shouted with a mighty roar, "Find the Halflings!"

* * *

The phrase echoed through every corner of the forest and found Buffy, Spike and Boromir. Buffy and Spike glanced around the woods fearfully as Buffy declared, "They're here."  
  
"Halflings," Spike repeated, then turned to Buffy. "They're goin' after all the hobbits."  
  
Buffy looked back towards Spike with a nearly incredulous expression as she added, "You've been hanging out with Legolas too long."  
  
Thunder suddenly clashed and the sky for a split-second turned as dark as night, then reverted back to day. "Hold on to your knickers, love," Spike breathed, staring up at the sky with Buffy, "I think our ride just honked."  
  
"Now?" Buffy exclaimed with a withering expression.  
  
_That is why when the door appears, you will not be ready for it.  
_  
Galadriel's voice rang in her mind as Buffy's green eyes grew wide with worry. "Merry and Pippin," Spike declared gravely, a terrifying thought crossing his own mind. "Oh, damn—"  
  
Buffy watched as he turned away from her and raced off into the woods. "You deserve him," a meek voice said as Buffy looked down at Boromir who sat with his back against a tree, still in the shock of his evil actions. "And he is worthy of you..."  
  
"What are you talking about?" Buffy asked. "Time to come back to Earth... or you know, Middle Earth. Either way, we really need you to be here."  
  
"Aragorn," Boromir shook his head.  
  
Buffy glared at him dubiously, "What does he—" Buffy suddenly realized her wooded surroundings and her heart was sent into a panic. "Oh, God," she breathed intensely, then shoved away her fear and stared down at Boromir. She reached for his arm and stood him up on his feet, declaring into his face, "Now, listen to me! Whatever it is, I need you to put it away! I need your help! If you don't, Aragorn's going to die!"  
  
Boromir looked up at her instantly and any selfish thoughts that he'd previously had vanished. "Go," he declared and Buffy turned and raced away.

* * *

Inside of Room 401 in Sunnydale Medical Hospital, Riley stared blankly at the walls, temporarily incapacitated and stationary. He felt a tremor. First it was small, then it steadily grew in size until medical tools and instruments were falling off of the shelves and tables and the hallway outside his room filled with the sounds of alarms going off, panicked shouts and glass breaking.  
  
Riley smiled as the tiled floor beneath his bed began to crack, knowing that Buffy was on the way home. It was the happiest earthquake of his life. He looked outside his window as the golden sun began to set behind the southern California hills – the backdrop of Sunnydale's magnificent vista. He glanced up at the clock in his room just before it fell off the wall: 7:17.

* * *

Frodo panted, his chest heaving, as he hid behind the trunk of a moss-covered tree. Hurried footsteps approached him as Uruk-hai soldiers ran past him, searching for him. After the Uruk-hai left, he heard his name softly whispered from his left.  
  
"Frodo!" Merry whispered urgently. Frodo turned to his left to see Merry and Pippin hiding inside the hallowed-out trunk of a fallen tree, covered thickly with brush.  
  
"Hide here, quick!" Pippin whispered as they motioned him towards them. Frodo stared at them for what seemed like eternity before he finally shook his head with regret. "What's he doing?" Pippin turned to Merry and asked.  
  
Merry stared at his tormented friend from across the clearing and answered back to Pippin, "He's leaving." Frodo looked away in guilt as the thought finally set in to Merry and Pippin.  
  
"No!" Pippin declared, jumping out of his hiding place and into the clear view of oncoming Uruk-hai. Merry jumped out to pull him back, but it was too late. Frodo stared up at his friends worriedly with terror in his heart.  
  
"Run, Frodo," Merry ordered. "Go!" Merry and Pippin both looked up at the Uruk-hai and began to shout, "Hey! Over here! This way!" The dim-witted Uruk-hai chased after the hobbits as they led them far enough away from Frodo to where he could make his escape.

* * *

Willow and Xander continued to run through the woods until they came to a slow stop near a bridge. "Will, I don't think Frodo came this way," Xander declared warily.  
  
"How can you tell?" Willow looked around the thick clearing. "I mean, he's a little guy – he blends in extremely well."  
  
"I know he didn't come this way," Xander replied.  
  
"Why?" Willow looked up at him as he stared straight ahead.  
  
"Because look what's coming this way right now!" Xander exclaimed. Willow turned around to see a platoon of sword- and axe-wielding Uruk-hai running straight for them. Buffy jumped out into the clearing and knocked down one of the Uruk-hai, taking his sword away from him.  
  
"Should've thought twice about that midday snack!" Buffy spat at him then cut off his head.  
  
Xander grimaced as the head fell to the ground, "Ooh, clean up on aisle six."  
  
"Buffy!" Willow exclaimed. "We're looking for Frodo!"  
  
"He's with Aragorn," she answered.  
  
"No, he's not," Xander replied. "Aragorn's one-manning it against more of these guys. Frodo ran off by himself." Buffy stared down at the dead Uruk-hai's detached head – the white painted handprint stretching across its face. It wasn't the same one from her vision, but it was close enough to chill her to the bone.  
  
"I have to find Aragorn!" she declared.  
  
"Go," Xander nodded. "We can take these sorry, vamp wannabes." Buffy pulled an axe from the side of the dead Uruk-hai and tossed it to Xander while she tossed the sword to Willow.  
  
"Don't die," Buffy declared, staring deeply at Xander and Willow as the three friends shared a precious moment. The Slayer then turned away and ran off, continuing on her trek to find Aragorn.  
  
Xander and Willow faced their snarling, growling, oncoming enemies. "Okay, boys," Xander grinned as he and Willow took a deep breath, "step right up. Time to give you a little ass kicking – California style."

* * *

Inside Giles' apartment, the glowing blue disc continued to swirl massively. "Everyone down!" Giles shouted as flashes of lightning bolted out of the vortex and over the heads of the gang.  
  
Angel was down on one knee as he stared up at the blue disc with wind whipping across his face as it suddenly turned a fiery red color. "Come on," he whispered to himself underneath his breath. "Come on..."  
  
Tara was chanting spitfire, her heart pounding in her chest. Suddenly, a massive, armor-clad figure stepped through the portal. Anya grabbed Dawn and pulled her back away from the portal protectively, while Giles kneeled with Tara.  
  
As Tara continued to chant, thoughts of Willow rushed into her mind. Suddenly, Cloutier's words became clear to her: 'One alone can bear the weight of this task... but it will take all to guide him.'  
  
The Dark Lord stared down at the Champion at his feet as he raised his club high in the air. Suddenly, a small explosion came from above and a silver sword darted down from another portal in the air. The unbroken blade of Narsil dug into the wooden floorboards an arm length away from Angel.  
  
"Thanks," he declared as he pulled Narsil from the ground and blocked Sauron's first blow.

* * *

Merry and Pippin froze dead in their tracks and realized that they were surrounded on every side by Uruk-hai. They turned to their right to see a gigantic soldier running directly at them with an axe in hand. Suddenly, another black-clad figure tackled the Uruk-hai to the ground.  
  
Spike jumped to his feet and snapped the neck of the Uruk-hai. He looked over at the stunned and grateful hobbits as he asked, "Will you two ever stay out of trouble?"  
  
They smiled at him before Pippin shouted with alarm, "Look out!" Spike whipped around just as an Uruk-hai shot a wooden arrow into his chest.

* * *

As Buffy continued to race through the trees, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli took on the mess of Uruk-hai that surrounded them. Aragorn sliced and slashed at soldiers that came at him from all directions, never faltering once. Gimli wildly threw axes at the Uruk-hai and buried his favorite ax into the faces of several, all while announcing proudly that dwarfs never falter. Legolas swiftly slashed his knifes into the sides of Uruk-hai while he picked them off one-by-one with his arrows' deadly aim, never faltering and never getting a spec of dirt on him.

* * *

Willow stabbed the last Uruk-hai in the back while Xander picked himself off of the ground. The ground beneath their feet suddenly shifted. They looked at each other knowingly and began to run.

* * *

Spike pulled the arrow from his chest, it being a half-inch away from his heart. He was suddenly knocked to his knees by the club of an Uruk-hai and looked up to see an Uruk-hai axe coming towards his head.  
  
Boromir appeared and knocked the ax away, skewering the monster with his sword. "Protect the Halflings," Boromir ordered as Spike came to a stand and complied. Spike and Boromir separated themselves by a few feet as a new round of Uruk-hai arrived. Boromir raised a horn to his lips and blew mightily.

* * *

Legolas shot an arrow off, killing the Uruk-hai that Aragorn was fighting. The body fell to the ground just as the sounds of Boromir's horn reached them. Legolas turned around, recognizing the sound and declaring, "The horn of Gondor!"  
  
"Boromir!" Aragorn shouted, running towards the distress signal.

* * *

In vampface, Spike punched an Uruk-hai and delivered a kick to the midsection, twisting its arm back and stabbing it with its own weapon. Boromir bent down just as an Uruk-hai flipped over him onto the ground. He raised the horn to his lips again and blew as he, Spike, Merry and Pippin retreated through the forest.  
  
Spike was cut off from the rest of the group suddenly by five Uruk-hai, just as three more approached Boromir. "Run!" Boromir shouted to the hobbits. "Run!" Merry and Pippin began to run and turned around, looking back to see Lurtz as he stepped towards the clearing.  
  
Two Uruk-hai soldiers grabbed on to Spike's arms, pulling him backwards as they tumbled down the hill and crashed to the bottom as a handful more piled on top of them. Boromir's sword clashed with a black Uruk-hai shield and with a whizzing noise a black arrow shot into his chest.  
  
Boromir stood still for a few seconds as he took in the pain of the first arrow. The entire world seemed still. Merry and Pippin turned to Boromir and could do nothing but gawk at his wound in horror. In immense pain, Boromir dropped to his knees with the arrow sticking out of him.  
  
With a yell, he pulled himself back on his feet and blocked two blows with his sword before impaling another Uruk-hai. In the distance, Lurtz snarled and walked closer to Boromir, his first arrow having not finished the job.  
  
Boromir blocked another shield and slashed his sword across the face of another opponent, battling to protect Merry and Pippin. He turned around just as Lurtz shot off another thick arrow. The second arrow pierced Boromir's stomach sourly and he once again dropped to his knees in agony.  
  
Boromir nearly collapsed on his side as he twisted around and stared down at the leaf-covered ground. He looked up and faced Merry in Pippin, both of them still in shock as they stared down at the man who would most certainly lose his life trying to protect them. He thrust himself back onto his feet and killed another Uruk-hai, digging his sword into its back.  
  
Spike stabbed an Uruk-hai as he came back up over the hill. He ripped the sword out and stared across the clearing to see Boromir be shot in the heart with the third and final arrow. He dropped to his knees just as another handful of Uruk-hai ambushed Spike, pushing him back down the hill.  
  
Boromir kneeled down on the ground, shaking with pain as Merry and Pippin were carried off by Uruk-hai. He could faintly hear them calling for him over the stampeding of Uruk-hai soldiers. He watched helplessly as two black armor-covered legs walked towards him amongst the other running legs. They stopped in front of him and he looked up to see Lurtz's white-handed face staring down at him as he aimed another arrow at his skull.  
  
Aragorn suddenly tackled him to the ground and the arrow went wild, lodging itself into a nearby tree. Lurtz pulled out his black shield and sword immediately and clashed with his Ranger sword. With a snarl, the Uruk-hai leader slammed his beefy fist into Aragorn's jaw, knocking him to the ground.  
  
Lurtz kicked him in the stomach, flipping Aragorn over and he swiftly rolled back on to his feet. Aragorn hit Lurtz in the midsection, but then was punched in the head and smacked away, skidding across the foliage-covered ground.

* * *

Sauron swung his club at Angel as the vampire ducked beneath it, dodging or blocking every attempt with the grand sword in his hands. Angel dived over the club as it came at him, landing hard on his back. Sauron raised the club over Angel and he barely rolled out of its path as he brought it crashing down, knocking a hole in the floorboards of the living room.  
  
"You're doing great!" Dawn shouted.  
  
"Yes!" Anya called. "Kill him faster!"  
  
Giles and Tara chanted to themselves as they repeated Cloutier's trance. They were now unaware of anyone else's presence but their own. As they chanted to themselves, a second tongue of blue light appeared in Giles' living room next to the red vortex.

* * *

Lurtz slammed his fist into Aragorn's face, then picked up his nearly-limp body and head butted him. He then tossed the human across the clearing like a small toy and Aragorn landed hard on the ground. Aragorn, with his hair in his face and blood dripping from his mouth, gazed groggily across the ground to see his Ranger sword lying near him.  
  
As he reached for it, Lurtz's massive foot slammed down on the blade as the Uruk-hai's hand snatched Aragorn's neck. He lifted him up by his throat, his feet dangling off of the ground, and Lurtz threw him across the clearing and slammed him up against a tree.  
  
The Uruk-hai leader looked down at the silver sword on the ground and picked it up with a grotesque smile. Lurtz stared at his target and marched towards Aragorn as he struggled to keep his consciousness, unaware of the danger coming. Aragorn looked up to see Lurtz stomping towards him just a few feet away as the Uruk-hai leader roared mightily. He pulled back the Ranger sword and thrust it directly towards Aragorn's heart.  
  
Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was a miracle. Whatever it was, Aragorn opened his eyes to see Buffy between he and Lurtz. She had the end of Aragorn's Ranger sword in the palms of her hands, stopping the blade inches away from her face exactly as she had during her and Angelus' final battle at the mansion.  
  
"Hi, I'm Buffy the Vampire Slayer," she declared with a bright, bubbly smile. Then she gripped the blade of the sword and knocked Lurtz in the face with the end of the hilt. Her smile faded instantly and she glared at Lurtz as he hit the ground, "And you're _really_ pissing me off."  
  
She tossed Aragorn's sword in the air and grabbed it by the hilt, gripping it tightly as Lurtz jumped up to a stand. Both the Slayer and the Uruk-hai leader squared off with each other as Lurtz raised his black sword up.  
  
"So let me get this straight," Buffy declared, "you guys were, like, elves once, right?" Lurtz snarled and growled at her, his yellow eyes flashing. "That explains the anger," Buffy nodded with a half-smile full of pity. "'Cause they're _much_ prettier than you are."  
  
An instant later, their swords clashed in a mad frenzy: flashing, whirring, swooping, cracking. Buffy blocked two of the Uruk-hai's blows with her sword and ducked beneath another swing. Lurtz swung at her again and she leaned back as the sword passed across her chest but connected with her right thigh, slashing it.  
  
Buffy drew back a moment before spinning around and delivering a kick to Lurtz's head, knocking him back. The Slayer swung at Lurtz's head, but he dodged her, ducking beneath her arm and digging his elbow into her spine. She hit the ground on her stomach and rolled on her back, flipping herself back onto her feet in no time.  
  
She blocked another attempt at her leg and then blocked a swing at her throat. Buffy pushed Lurtz's sword away with her own, opening him up for a devastating right hook to his jaw. She followed instantly with a backhand punch which fazed him little, and he jabbed her in the stomach with his fist, knocking her back several feet.  
  
Buffy fell on her back and Lurtz kicked her in the side, throwing her up in the air like a football and kicking her a few more feet away. He raised his sword and brought it down at her, but she rolled out of the way and it connected with a rock, burying deep into the stone. Lurtz yanked on the hilt of his sword, but could not free it from the depth of the stone.  
  
While still on the ground, Buffy swiftly kicked him in the stomach and knocked him away from his sword. She jumped to her feet and slashed at his right forearm, cutting it off. With his left arm, he knocked her across the face with enough force to throw her across the clearing. She flew back as the Ranger sword left her hands and fell into the dirt a few yards away from her.  
  
She landed on her belly as Lurtz pulled his sword out of the rock and stomped towards her, raising it in the air. Groggily, she reached for another weapon in front of her face on the ground. Lurtz rushed her and was about to bring the sword down on the back of her head as she rolled over onto her back and shoved a broken piece of a wooden log into Lurtz's heart.  
  
The Uruk-hai leader glanced down at the lance-like object impaling him through the chest and stared down at her bloodied, angry face in disbelief. He roared in her face as he raised his sword back up for one final blow. The Ranger sword suddenly slashed through his neck and Lurtz's white-handed, detached head fell to the ground.  
  
Buffy looked up to see Aragorn standing over her with the black blood of the Uruk-hai dripping from his Ranger sword. Buffy pushed herself up to a stand as Aragorn gazed around at the corpse-littered forest and breathed heavily, "No..."  
  
Buffy watched him run off across the clearing up to a figure lying against the trunk of a tree. Buffy's eyes grew wide with shock as she realized who it was. "Boromir," she whispered, her breath sucking out of her lungs. She rushed up to him with panic in her eyes as Aragorn dropped to his knees beside him.  
  
Boromir stared up at their faces, his own face colored a pale blue as blood dripped from his lips. "Th-they took the little ones," Boromir breathed, struggling to speak.  
  
"Hold still," Aragorn ordered as he gazed down at the arrows sticking out of Boromir's body.  
  
"Frodo," Boromir trembled. "Where is Frodo?"  
  
Aragorn looked into his eyes, "I let Frodo go."  
  
"Then you did what I could not," he declared, his voice shaking rapidly.  
  
Spike, covered in black Uruk-hai blood, quickly rushed up the hill to the top just as Willow and Xander ran up from the side. The three of them stopped and gazed wide-eyed at the other side of the clearing to see Buffy, Aragorn and Boromir near the tree amongst dozens of dead Uruk-hai.  
  
Buffy kneeled down in front of Boromir as he looked into her face, his eyes full of guilt, "I-I tried to take the Ring from him."  
  
Aragorn whispered, shaking his head, "The Ring is beyond our reach now."  
  
"Forgive me," Boromir breathed hard, staring up at Buffy and Aragorn. "I did not see. I have failed you all." She stared down at him as tears began to sting her eyes.  
  
_There is a price for all things... For this alone, one in the Fellowship will die..._  
  
Galadriel's voice once again rang in her mind as Buffy slowly shook her head, "No..." Tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared at him, "I'm sorry..."

* * *

Narsil connected with Sauron's club once again as the second light in Giles' living room became another swirling portal of blue clouds. Angel pulled the sword back and swung it at the Dark Lord and it passed through him like air. Now, that was all he was.  
  
Sauron stared down at his hands in disbelief as Angel stepped back away from his defeated opponent. The Dark Lord looked back at the red portal from which he came as it slowly began to fade.  
  
"No...!" Sauron howled with a deep voice twisted by fury. "The Ring is mine! No one shall stop me! I am the Dark Lord! I shall rule the world!"  
  
"Oh, yeah?" Angel declared with a stone face. "Go start a fan club." The red portal swirled and howled as Sauron became translucent and was pulled back into the portal. Angel stared at Narsil as he held it up, "Gotta get me one of these." Then, with a powerful thrust, he threw the sword into the red portal and back into its current place in Middle Earth – a shattered blade housed inside a stone room in Rivendell.  
  
Angel turned around as Dawn and Anya came out of their corner and joined him. Giles and Tara continued their chants on the floor while the other three stood before the new portal as it continued to glow blue and swirl around. Flashes of blue lightning crashed in front of the disc as they watched and waited anxiously.

* * *

Aragorn reached down to pull the arrows from Boromir's chest as he grabbed his hand and declared, "Leave it." Aragorn and Buffy both stared at him in shock as Boromir shakily explained, "It is over. The world of Men will fall. And all will come to darkness... and my city to ruin."  
  
Aragorn grabbed his hand and declared, "I do not know what strength is in my blood, but I swear to you, I will not let the White City fall..." He finished with his voice nearly breaking, "...Nor our people fail."  
  
"Our people," Boromir repeated as his chest writhed in pain. "Our people..." His hand reached out for his blade and Aragorn placed it in his palm. Boromir pushed the hilt of his blade to his chest as he declared, "I would have followed you, my brother." Aragorn looked down at him with soft blue eyes as he swallowed hard. "My captain," Boromir added with a hint of a smile. "My king."  
  
Aragorn stared down at his face speechlessly as Boromir struggled to breathe his last breaths. Spike, Willow and Xander were frozen several feet away as Legolas and Gimli rushed up and stopped, viewing the heartbreaking scene.  
  
Wind began to blow gently through the forest as a light appeared a few feet away from them. The blue light grew bigger and caught Willow and Xander's attention as it swirled around and became a blue, cloudy, circular disc of light. Electrical surges passed across the face of the portal that stared at them, beckoning them to take their final place. Willow, Spike and Xander gazed at each other knowingly.  
  
Slowly, Buffy reached for Boromir's hand, placing her own inside of his. With the last strength he had left he squeezed it gently and looked into her tear-soaked expression. She stared down into his eyes and softly began, "I don't know if I changed your world... and... I don't know if I changed your fates... or you." Boromir fixed his eyes on her beautiful face as another tear rolled down her cheek. "But I do know one thing for sure," Buffy whispered with a breaking voice. "You have changed me."  
  
He gazed up at her as she gave him a painful, half-smile that freed him from all of his torment. She whispered finally, "Thank you."  
  
Buffy closed her eyes and leaned down towards him, placing a gentle kiss on his pale lips. A few seconds later, she pulled her head back to see Boromir silent and still as stone, a peaceful expression on his face. She stared at him quietly as the wind around her began to pick up, as if the wind was attempting to replace the sound of his breathing which now the world was void of.  
  
Weakly, she stood up and backed away from the body. "Time to go, Slayer," Spike declared, penetrating her silent trance. Buffy turned around quickly to see Spike standing in front of the portal by himself; Willow and Xander had already left.  
  
There before her was the door, but she was not ready to go through. Buffy turned back to Boromir's body, torn between the body and the portal. "Slayer," Spike declared again, trying to regain her attention before it was too late. She continued to stare at his pale, lifeless face.  
  
"Buffy..." Spike gently called. He walked up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder. "This isn't our world," he softly began. "We're out of place here, love."  
  
Aragorn turned away from Boromir's body and looked at Buffy's anguished appearance. The both of them made eye-contact and shared several seconds of silence as they stared at each other. With a grateful expression, he gave her a gentle nod, officially relieving her of her duty to Fellowship of the Ring.  
  
"Let's go home, Buffy," Spike declared. Buffy turned away from what was left of the Fellowship and faced the portal. Taking a deep breath, she and Spike stepped inside. 


	12. Changed For Good

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).

**12: Changed For Good**

Buffy felt as if she were flying through the air as visions of Middle Earth flashed through her mind. Of Rivendell and the forming of the Fellowship... Boromir sparring with Buffy... Buffy talking with Aragorn as they walked across the Pass of Cadharas... Buffy telling Frodo about her life in the mines of Moria... Buffy watching helplessly as Gandalf fell into the shadows at the hands of the Balrog... Galadriel descending the stairs for the first time in Lothlórien... Looking into Galadriel's mirror...Galadriel watching them row away from Lórien...Sitting by the fire on the riverbank...Seeing Frodo lying on the ground, Running after Boromir, Running after Aragorn, Fighting Lurtz, Kneeling at Boromir's side, Kissing him goodbye—  
  
Buffy opened her eyes and stood in the middle of Giles' apartment next to Willow, Xander and Spike and in front of Giles, Dawn, Anya, Tara and Angel. Galadriel's voice rang and repeated in her mind as Buffy stared at Dawn in shock:  
  
_Fear not the Beast or the one who does not belong. When your world is uncertain, believe in your love and your purpose shall be made clear._

* * *

Buffy sat alone in the dark inside of her living room. She was now comfortable, warm and – thankfully – clean inside of her house, but felt it strange that it didn't feel anything like home.  
  
Dawn was the Key. Glory was the Beast. The exact night that she'd come back from Middle Earth, she had found this out by meeting one of the monks who made Dawn. That was just a few hours ago and now she sat alone in the middle of the night while her mother and her... sister... slept in their rooms upstairs.  
  
She was remembering the things that Giles had told her, but was having trouble understanding. He mentioned that now that the dimensional shift had occurred and was now over, the rate of time of both dimensions had changed again. There was no telling how fast or slow either dimension moved in relation to each other; in the six hours since she'd been back, maybe a century had passed or maybe a single day.  
  
What crushed her most of all is that she would never know what happened to any of them. There was no way of her knowing whether they'd fall at the hands of evil or they'd overcome and defeat their enemies. Buffy looked down at her lap to see Boromir's black cloak – all that she had of Middle Earth – lying over her.  
  
Buffy heard a gentle knock at the front door and stood up curiously, limping towards the doorway. She opened the door to see Spike standing outside in the night air, his hair fully restored to its natural, unnatural color. Buffy moved out of the doorway, leaving it open for him to enter into the house. Spike followed her into the foyer, then into the living room where Buffy sat back down on the couch.  
  
"Came to see how you were," Spike declared, staring down at her as he stood in the middle of the living room.  
  
"Been better," Buffy sighed.  
  
"And Soldier Boy?" Spike asked. "Uh, Riley? Heard he got beat up pretty bad..."  
  
"He'll be fine," Buffy answered tiredly. "Doctors said that he'll probably be released before the week is over."  
  
Spike rolled his eyes as he hesitantly asked, "And Angel?"  
  
"Home by now, probably," Buffy replied slowly. "We didn't talk much. He was just glad I was okay."  
  
"Right," Spike nodded. "Why are you answering these questions?"  
  
"I have no idea," Buffy shook her head in exhaustion. "Why are you checking up on me?"  
  
"Not sure myself," Spike replied and then sat down beside Buffy on the couch. Their fatigue made them forget how uncanny this scene would have been to them if they'd never ventured into Middle Earth – the two of them sat back like old friends on Buffy's couch.  
  
Silence settled between them until Spike finally declared, "Long day."  
  
Buffy lightly chuckled for a moment before her smile faded as she replied, "The longest." She stared into the darkness of the living room before she looked over at him and asked, "Do you think you'll ever forget them?"  
  
"Unfortunately," Spike declared, "no." His stone expression melted a bit as he then added, "And sometimes not so unfortunately." With a light chuckle, a smile stretched his face as he said, "You know what the two sprouts called me when we were in the Enchanted Forest?"  
  
"Merry and Pippin?" Buffy asked, looking over at him.  
  
"Yeah," Spike nodded, thinking deeply to himself, and then slowly answering. "Hero."  
  
Buffy stared at him in silence, watching him take in the memory which brought both contentment and grief in his eyes. Buffy finally declared after a while, "You sure acted like one out there."  
  
Spike turned to Buffy, surprised to hear it. A grateful half-smile curved his lips as he nodded and declared, "You know, I don't suppose we'll ever know how their story ends. But I've got a pretty good idea."  
  
"You do?" she asked curiously.  
  
"Yeah," Spike replied as he looked at the living room, and then turned back to her. "No matter which way the war goes... they go down as Champions."  
  
Buffy stared at him and softly asked, "How do you know?"  
  
He answered while staring at her deeply, "Because we're not the only ones who changed today. They've been changed, too."  
  
"For the better?" she asked in disbelief.  
  
"Can't tell you that for sure, love," Spike declared. "But they've been changed for good." More silence passed between them as they both stared into the moonlit living room.  
  
"So what happens now?" Buffy asked.  
  
"Now?" Spike shrugged and then turned to her. "I guess now we show the people in our world what we've learned from them." Hearing Spike say the words reminded Buffy of something that she had forgotten even when she was in Middle Earth:  
  
----------  
  
_"I wish the Ring had never come to me," Frodo announced softly. "I wish none of this had happened."  
  
Gandalf stared at Frodo, then looked up at Buffy, taking note of the fact that she was also listening. "So do all that come to see such times," Gandalf replied. "But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."_  
  
=====  
  
Frodo stood on the riverbank staring out at the water as tears rolled down his cheeks and the sun shined down on him, illuminating the Ring in his outstretched hand. He remembered Gandalf's words with agony in his heart.  
  
He pulled together what strength he had left and closed the Ring in his palm, placed it in his pocket and marched towards one of the canoes. He pushed it out of the sand and into the river, jumping into it alone. Grabbing an oar, he paddled out away from the sandy shore as he heard Sam's voice calling out for him, "Frodo, no!"  
  
Sam ran out of the forest, across the beach and into the water calling, "Frodo! Mr. Frodo!"  
  
"No, Sam," Frodo softly whispered to himself, paddling away from the riverbank. Sam watched his friend as the distance between them increased. The hobbit suddenly ran into the deeper water attempting to catch the boat that was many yards away.  
  
"Go back, Sam!" Frodo ordered, watching his friend run into the deep water. "I'm going to Mordor alone!"  
  
"Of course you are," Sam shouted back. "And I'm coming with you!" The water came up to chest level as he continued to walk into the river.  
  
"You can't swim!" Frodo yelled as Sam's head suddenly disappeared beneath the water. Frodo's eyes grew wide as he clutched the edge of the boat, "Sam!"  
  
Beneath the water, Sam struggled and kicked as he sank deeper and deeper beneath the surface until he came to the bottom. He moved slower by the second, helplessly falling victim to the water as he reached up for the light above the surface. Frodo's hand suddenly came down and grabbed Sam's forearm, pulling him out of the water and into his canoe.  
  
Sam coughed and choked as he pulled himself into the boat. He breathed heavily as he declared, "I made a promise, Mr. Frodo. A promise." Frodo gazed at him as Sam, dripping wet, added, "'Don't you leave him, Samwise Gamgee.' And I don't mean to." Sam shook his head as he then remembered something else, "Just like Mr. Xander said, Frodo. I'm not backing out."  
  
"Sam," Frodo said as he shook his head with tears in his eyes. That's all he could say, before he hugged his best friend – his brother – tightly. He pulled away and looked into Sam's determined eyes declaring, "Come on."

* * *

"You mean not to follow them," Legolas declared as he stared at Aragorn incredulously. Aragorn sat on the trunk of a tree as he gazed across the river to see Frodo and Sam disappearing into the woods, their boat left behind on the shore.  
  
"Frodo's fate is no longer in our hands," Aragorn sighed, then turned to his still stunned friend.  
  
"Then it has all been in vain," Gimli declared, marching up to them. "The Fellowship has failed." Aragorn stared down at the sand as Legolas and Gimli joined him at his side.  
  
"The good fight..." Aragorn repeated with a half-smile on his face.  
  
"What did you say?" Gimli asked, looking up at him as Aragorn stood up and put a hand on Gimli's shoulder and the other hand on Legolas' shoulder.  
  
"Not if we hold true to each other," Aragorn declared, staring at both of them. He looked up at Legolas, "We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death. Not while we have strength left. Leave all that can be spared behind." Aragorn turned away and grabbed his blade, sheathing it at his side, "We travel light."  
  
Gimli asked in surprise, "We're going after them?"  
  
Legolas looked down at the dwarf with a smile, "Isn't that what he just said?"  
  
Aragorn looked up at them both and declared, "Let's hunt some Orc." 


	13. Epilogue

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in this story. They belong to Joss Whedon, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their other respective owners.  
  
A/N ABOUT THIS STORY: As you can tell, I've taken several scenes directly from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings, word-for-word in the dialogue. This is not to rip off any of the real writers because I respect their work and I am not a plagiarist. This is an artistic ploy to put the reader in the mindset of where they are and is essential to the story. The Buffy episodes used were episodes (5.5) "No Place Like Home," written by Doug Petrie and (5.22) "The Gift," written by Joss Whedon. The movies used are, of course, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, written by Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson, based on the books by J.R.R. Tolkien (if you didn't know that, shame, shame).

**Epilogue**

**Sunnydale, California: May 22, 2001**

"Buffy!" Dawn screamed as she stood chained on top of tower and one of Glory's minions, Doc, sliced at her stomach drawing her blood.  
  
Doc stopped and turned around seeing the Slayer, her eyes furious and determined, marching down the walkway towards them. "Well," he smiled, "this should be interest—"  
  
Without a single pause, Buffy shoved him out of her way and continued down the walkway as Doc plummeted several stories to the concrete ground of the construction site below. Buffy rushed over to her sister as tears poured down her face.  
  
"Here," Buffy gently declared as she broke the chains holding her wrists.  
  
"Buffy," Dawn cried, "it hurts."  
  
"I got it," Buffy answered, comforting her. "Come here. You're gonna be okay." Blood dripped from Dawn's feet into the air, and a white light appeared beneath the edge of the walkway. A cloud of light appeared, shifting and moving as it grew in size.

**Mount Doom: Mordor**

Samwise Gamgee limped into the entrance of the volcano as it shifted and growled inside while outside Aragorn, the King of Gondor, along with Legolas, Gimli, Merry, Pippin and Gandalf in his reincarnated form battled the forces of Mordor.  
  
As soon as Sam walked into the volcano he could feel the tremendous heat on his body. He slowly stumbled his way down the walkway towards the end as he called out over the roaring of fire around him, "Frodo!"  
  
At the end of the walkway, Sam could see Frodo standing at the end of a rock and staring into the lava below. Heat swirled around the fiery chasm they were in as Frodo turned around, beaten, dirtied, cut and his eyes full of despair. "I'm here, Sam..."

* * *

Dawn stopped in the middle of the platform walkway and turned around. "Go!" Buffy ordered.  
  
"Buffy," Dawn exclaimed, staring at the night sky behind her. "It's started!" Buffy turned around towards the portal and she and Dawn watched helplessly. The gigantic cloud of light was erupting, shifting, moving and pulsing as it grew larger and larger, rumbling and crashing in the sky.  
  
From the ground, Giles looked up in awe at the horrifying sight. Xander and Anya held each other as they sat on the ground below the tower, looking up at the portal. Spike pushed himself off of the ground, just now regaining consciousness after he was thrown off of the tower trying to save Dawn. He looked over as a gigantic crack opened in the ground and it began to tremble and shake. Tara and Willow also stared up at the sky before looking back at each other with worry. It was the end of all things and Buffy was the only one who could stop it. _But that meant killing Dawn..._

* * *

Sam walked slowly towards his friend, walking deeper into the fiery chasm. "Destroy it!" he shouted. Frodo looked away from him and looked down at the golden Ring on the chain that he clutched to his chest. With shaking hands, he pulled it away from him and held it before his eyes. He stared down at the Ring as the cavern groaned and rocked.  
  
"Go on!" Sam yelled. "Now! Throw it in the fire!" Frodo stared down at the lava below him with tears welling in his eyes from the heat. His chest heaved heavily and his face grimaced with pain while his hand trembled wildly.  
  
"What are you waiting for?" Sam declared with a withering voice. "Just let it go!"

* * *

Buffy clung on to Dawn for dear life as they watched the portal shift and bubble in horror. "I'm sorry," Dawn shook her head, crying.  
  
"It doesn't matter," Buffy declared. Dawn looked at the boiling portal as her eyes filled with determination and she tried to walk past Buffy. Buffy grabbed her by the arm, "What are you doing?"  
  
"I have to jump," Dawn declared, staring at Buffy now. "The energy—"  
  
"It'll kill you," Buffy shook her head. She'd lost her mother to an aneurysm; she wasn't going to lose the only part of her family she had left.  
  
"I know," Dawn whispered softly, as if she were trying to comfort her sister. Buffy stared at her incredulously as she continued, "Buffy, I know about the ritual. I have to stop it."  
  
"No!" Buffy snapped as the tower creaked and shook beneath their feet.

* * *

Frodo stared at the Ring as the torment that filled his eyes suddenly vanished. For the first time in a long time, Frodo felt calm in his heart. The Ring whispered and sang to him, filling his mind with comfort and solitude. Sam watched from the other end of the walkway, staring at his motionless friend in confusion.  
  
Frodo turned around and faced Sam, no longer lost and fear no longer in his eyes. He glared at Sam with a tear-stained face as he declared with bitter, wicked words, "The Ring is _mine_."  
  
Sam watched in horror as he ripped the Ring from the chain and pointed his index finger. "No," Sam shook his head tearfully. "No..." As Frodo pushed the Ring nearer to his finger, a maniacal, evil grin twisted his face. The second the Ring connected with his finger, Frodo disappeared completely from sight.  
  
"No!" Sam screamed.

* * *

"I have to!" Dawn shouted. "Look at what's happening!" Lightning flashed as Buffy and Dawn turned back towards the portal to see a gigantic dragon fly out, squealing and howling as it soared across the sky.

* * *

Sam hit the ground hard as Gollum smacked the back of his head with a rock. Gollum glared around the chasm, having chased the hobbits this far and knew where Frodo was. He leapt on Frodo's head and pulled and twisting, trying anything to get his beloved Ring back.  
  
Gollum grabbed the hand that the Ring was on, holding it high in the air, and he viciously bit down on it. With a scream, Frodo reappeared, the Ring having been bitten off of his finger. The hobbit collapsed to his knees, staring down at his bloody index finger, half of it missing. Behind him, Gollum pranced and skipped around in glee, having finally being reunited with his 'precious.'  
  
Frodo looked up at him as Gollum danced with the Ring as he repeated the word, "Precious... Precious... Precious!" The hobbit came to a stand and walked towards him menacingly until he grabbed the creature and wrestled for the Ring. Sam looked up as he dwindled back into consciousness and saw Frodo and Gollum fall over the edge of the walkway with the burning river of fire right below.

* * *

"Buffy, you have to let me go!" Dawn declared as Buffy stared at her in excruciating anguish. "The blood starts it, and until the blood stops flowing, it'll never stop!" Buffy's hands clutched Dawn's shoulders tightly as they trembled with fear and indecision. Let go of her sister and let her commit suicide to save the world or hold on to her sister and let the world be destroyed.  
  
_Let go..._ Buffy kept trying to tell herself. _I can't let go. Not my sister. Please, not my sister..._

* * *

Terrified, Sam jumped up on his feet and ran to the end of the stone walkway, lying down on his belly and peering over the edge. Gollum disappeared into the lava below, taking the Ring with him, while Frodo clung on to the end of the rock desperately.  
  
Sam reached out for his friend, his heart racing, but his hand was a foot too short to grab him. "Give me your hand!" Sam ordered. Frodo looked up at his friend, his mind clearer now that the Ring was no longer in his possession. He gazed up at Sam's hand as if it were a mile away. A mile further than he cared to go.  
  
"Take my hand!" Sam ordered, reaching down for him. Frodo complied and struggled to reach up for Sam. Frodo's blood-covered hand just barely touched Sam's hand before it slipped away and he nearly lost his grip on the rock completely.  
  
"No!" Sam shouted as the bloody hand slid away from him. Frodo's face was full of exhaustion and he glared up at the other hobbit as he reaching down for him with urgency. Frodo looked up at the hand of his friend and then glared down at the fiery river below, now holding the edge of the rock with one hand.

* * *

"You know you have to let me go," Dawn shook her head with tears streaming down her face as she stared at Buffy. "It has to have the blood."

* * *

Frodo's tortured eyes met Sam's eyes of determination once more. Sam stared down at him with resolve as he held out his hand and declared, "Don't you let go..."

* * *

Buffy's crushed expression suddenly changed as she heard Sam's voice in the back of her mind. For a moment, she thought she was crazy, but then she was sure it was Sam that she heard. Her mind flashbacked to the vision that she'd had in her bedroom before she went through the portal of Frodo and Sam...  
  
_In Mount Doom_, she thought as she breathed lightly. Buffy looked down at her hands that still tightly clutched her sister. Sam's voice spoke in her mind once more:  
  
_'Don't let go...'_  
  
Buffy turned around towards the portal and remembered what the First Slayer had said to her: _'Death is your gift...'_  
  
Resolve settled on her face as she watched the sun rise from behind the southern California hills, Sunnydale's backdrop. The fear disappeared from her heart and she knew what she had to do.  
  
Buffy turned to her sister with a peaceful expression on her face, terrifying Dawn to the core. "Buffy," Dawn exclaimed, knowing what was about to happen, "no!"  
  
"Dawnie, I have to," Buffy whispered, placing her hands on Dawn's tear-soaked face. Cool wind blew around them as Dawn's violet dress softly flapped in the wind.  
  
"No!" Dawn cried.  
  
"Listen to me," Buffy declared as her straight blonde hair waived in her face. "Please. There isn't a lot of time, listen..."

* * *

Frodo stared down at the fiery lava once more, knowing that he couldn't reach his friend's hand. Did he want to reach him? Did he want to continue life at all?  
  
_'You have to be strong,'_ he suddenly heard in the back of his mind. It was Buffy. He looked up at Sam again and remembered his vision of Buffy on top of a tower at night as she spoke to another young girl. He continued to hear Buffy's voice:  
  
_'Dawn, the hardest thing in this world... is to live in it. Be brave. Live...'_  
  
Frodo reached up his hand suddenly and Sam caught it with a strong grip.  
  
_'For me...'_

* * *

Buffy stroked the side of Dawn's face and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek as tears continued to fall. She pulled back and stared at her sister's face with resolve, then turned away valiantly.

* * *

The One Ring of Power finally melted in the fires of Mount Doom as the Eye of Sauron exploded into furious flames. Every minion of evil outside of the volcano suddenly stopped and retreated, and not a moment too soon.

* * *

Aragorn picked himself off of the ground and looked towards the mountain as tremendous squealing rang out throughout Mordor. Gandalf stared at Mount Doom almost in disbelief. Legolas watched in shock as the clouds circled the tower of the Eye of Sauron and it crumbled down to nothingness. Merry and Pippin stood side by side near Gimli as they cheered, watching the collapse of the tower.  
  
The Dark Lord had finally been defeated.

* * *

Buffy ran down the walkway, steadily crossing the platform and as she reached the end she leapt off the edge in a glorious swan dive. She plummeted through the air and disappeared into the swirling cloud portal.  
  
She hung in midair in the middle of the portal as she grimaced with pain, the life being sucked out of her. Her blood slowly began to stop flowing. The portal writhed and cursed and jerked – wanting to reject this Champion that had cast herself into its belly and was slowing killing it.

* * *

Frodo and Sam pulled each other across the stone walkway, racing towards the exit as the lava boiled over and spilled out after them. The walkway crumbled beneath their feet as they rushed out of the exit, the fiery river following closely behind. The top of Mount Doom had exploded and Mordor itself was being destroyed.

* * *

Buffy was surrounded in the white, shifting portal as it crashed and thrashed around her. The pain in her expression slowly disappeared and vanished along with her life. Buffy's soul left her body as the portal shrunk down and dissipated into the air.

The world had been saved and the ultimate price had been paid.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brilliant white light poured down on a pale, beaten face that lay down on a soft, feathery pillow. The body lay in a bed, wrapped in the warm sunlight and blankets of the Houses of Healing. Breath suddenly filled the lungs deeply as two green eyes opened to the sunlight.  
  
"Hello, Buffy," a soft voice said.  
  
Buffy Summers sat up in the bed to see Frodo standing before her at the edge of the bed. Next to him, Gandalf the White had a pleasant smirk on his face. Buffy looked in the corner of the room to see the other hobbits, Sam, Merry and Pippin, standing next to Legolas and Gimli. Next to them, Aragorn stepped out of the shadows and revealed himself to her with a pleased and knowing smile.  
  
Buffy was overcome with joy as King Aragorn nodded reverently, "Welcome home."


End file.
